The Muslim Voice: Querencia

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QUERENCIA (que•ren•ci•a)

A place from which one’s strength is drawn, where one feels at home; the place where you are your most authentic self.

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EDITOR’S ADDRESS

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uerencia. A place from which you derive your strength. This is a notion I have been grappling with. Due to the tumultuous year we have experienced, I found it difficult to resign myself to a single place. Why should we have to choose? Why do we feel the need to designate a single source of strength? Can’t we have the freedom to occupy a multitude of spaces without restricting ourselves to a place?

Walt Whitman, in Leaves of Grass, tells us “Do anything, but let it produce joy.” How often did we focus on finding joy in our lives? The past year has changed that. It has taught us to romanticize the mundane, to create a world which is solely ours. We have found happiness in small shimmers of tranquility. The smell of freshly brewed coffee. The pattering of raindrops on the window. The feeling of a crisp fall day. Leaves changing color: yellow, orange, red. Watching the sun set. Seeing a new day emerge with the potential of a new beginning. Yet as we return to normal, we slowly lose sight of these moments, of what gives us joy, reverting to our old habits.

Enfolded within these pages is an ongoing search for happiness through a more authentic conception of self. From exploring Islam in Canada, to critiquing hegemonic narratives, and grappling with identity, our writers have explored a vast array of topics in the quest to find their querencia. Despite the year that passed, it’s remarkable to see the capacity of art to withstand even the toughest of obstacles. This issue is proof that even with the darkest of days comes with a new dawn.

From conception to print, this issue would not have been possible without my team. I would like to thank everyone for their efforts in creating a truly meaningful issue. From the writers who toiled over their articles, to the editors who perfected them, and to the graphic designers who brought them to life, none of this would have been possible without you. I think everyone on the team will agree that this truly was a labor of our love, and we couldn’t be more grateful that you’ve picked up a copy.

As cold winter nights set in and you find yourself curled up next to a fire, I encourage you to reconsider the moments which bring you happiness. I leave you with one question.

What is your querencia?

Zoya Merchant Editor-In-Chief

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Bridge to Solitutde Sabrine Chanda..............................................................................6

Lunatic Easa Khan......................................................................................8

Here Since the Beginning Yusuf Sheikh.....................................................................................12

The Slippery Slope of Muslim Representation Fizzah Mansoor...............................................................................................13

Navigating Querencia: Between a Serene Illusion and a Sedative Reality Usama Bin Ansar.............................................................................................14

“And We Created You in Pairs” Iman Ghazi.......................................................................................................18

Jahiliyyah and Gharbzadegi Erfan Ehsan......................................................................................................20

An-Nisaa Madiha Fathima Syed...................................................................................22

The Muslim Voice: Team Picks TMV Team........................................................................................................23

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DISCLAIMER: The ideas and opinions expressed in this issue do not necessarily reflect those of the TMV staff or those of the Muslim Students’ Association at the University of Toronto 2021-12-05 7:00 PM

THE TEAM

Editor-In-Chief: Zoya Merchant Writing Lead: Erfan Ehsan Writers: Easa Khan Fizzah Mansoor Iman Ghazi Madiha Fathima Syed Sabrine Chanda Usama Bin Ansar Yusuf Sheikh

VP Communications: Maarya Zafar Head Content Editor: Rejaa Khalid Graphic Designers: Maarya Zafar Masooma Batool Nuha Wani Rejaa Khalid Salwa Iqbal

Senior Editor: Malaika Nasir Lead Editor: Talha Chaudhry Editors: Ayah Abu-Hijleh Firdous Qasim Mohammad Rasoul Kailani Rawan Aladdin Soundous Louardiane Zarfishan Qureshi Cover Design: Nuha Wani & Maarya Zafar Stay Connected With Us: @tmv.uoft issuu.com/tmvmag facebook.com/tmvmag tmv.uoftmsa.com

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Sabrine Chanda

A Bridge To Solitude

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here’s a moment in time when a thousand impossible variables align and you find yourself arrested in silence. Your heart and mind still. Somewhere, a raindrop falls, holding its perfect shape on your sleeve. The sun explodes from behind a cloud, lighting the world with the purest of gold. A Quran falls open on the page you seek without so much as a touch. The crosswalk light turns red, saving you from a catastrophe. In that moment, you realize you are not alone.

This may come once in a lifetime or at every hour, opening your eyes, your mind, your heart, letting in a flood of peace and sabr (patience). Perhaps your prayers are being answered, perhaps they are being denied, and there lies the answer. Allah ‫ ﷻ‬tells us in the Quran, “And whoever puts their trust in Allah ‫ﷻ‬, then He (alone) is sufficient for them” (65:3).

This moment of clarity is what we all desire. Yet often, when experiencing stress and anxiety, our mental and physical vision becomes blurred. These moments pass by unseen, as we are bombarded with new difficulties and challenges. When we hesitantly reach out, trying to make sense of our internal feelings and put them into words, we are often met with the age-old dismissal, “You need to pray, recite the Quran, and make dua (supplication),” as if the reason for our mental state is a lack of piety or religious practice.

Yet this response only induces more turmoil, and wrongly places the blame on the one experiencing difficulty.

Stress is a normal, psychological, and physical reaction to the demands of life. It’s an alarm system for the body and brain, signalling that there are situations that need to be dealt with.

It is not an indicator of weak faith, and to claim such is to forget what the Quran says. Allah ‫ ﷻ‬tells us, “There certainly has come to you a messenger from among yourselves. He is concerned by your suffering, anxious for your wellbeing…” (9:128). Prophet Muhammad ‫ ﷺ‬wept tears of anxiety over the Muslim ummah (community), and he was the greatest of all the prophets, a

possessor of all the virtues taught to us.

He spent every day and night in prayer, yet still experienced stress and anxiety. Surely then, the link between stress and faith must be reevaluated.

As we encounter hardship, we often feel as though everything around us is almost directly targeting our success and progress. I remember coming across a sentence some time ago that struck me; “A Muslim can never lose.”

I reflected on this saying as I thought of my life, my family, my friends, and the Muslim ummah around the world.

We experience loss every day. We experience grief, conflict, fear, trials, and tribulations that test us to our very limits. When one matter is resolved, another arises. I kept returning to the sentence, trying to understand.

“

I watched as people around me lost everything. A home going up in flames.

Losing the job that would pay their bills.

Family and friends, gone from this world.

The hopelessness I felt, the inability to help those around me was suffocating at times. Yet, as I watched these battles, I began to see the survival and I realized what had escaped my understanding. That sentence doesn’t mean that Muslims never face loss, or that a Muslim’s faith will never be tested. Rather, it guides us to remember a message repeated frequently in the Quran, “On no soul do We place a burden greater than it can bear: before Us is a record which clearly shows the truth: they will never be wronged” (23:62).

I began to draw a picture in my mind, a shaky bridge between these ideas of loss, stress, and trial. I thought of every hardship, every test, every moment of pain. We often say “you’re not alone” when comforting someone going through difficulty. We draw

parallels to reassure people that their challenges are possible to overcome, just as another person overcame theirs.

Yet, this never helped me. It only increased my anxiety, making me feel obligated to overcome my difficulties instantaneously just because others had.

Then in a heartbeat, it clicked. I recalled the verse from the Quran, “Indeed, (it is) We (Who) created humankind and (fully) know what their souls whisper to them, and We are closer to them than (their) jugular vein” (50:16). This was that moment of clarity. I realized that while we are not alone, our company in times of difficulty is not other people as we always tell each other. Those people have their own challenges and cannot provide the unequivocal support we need. Our company is Allah ‫ﷻ‬, the One who decides every test we go through and every obstacle we face for the purpose of strengthening ourselves and becoming the person we are meant to be. We are never alone, and what we face is never stronger than us. Each of our challenges are unlike anyone else’s, and that is precisely why we can overcome them; we are uniquely chosen for these tests.

The bridge is still being constructed every day. When I find myself in the midst of a panic and anxiety attack, I begin blaming myself for not being strong enough. I forget everything I’ve learnt and lose contact with my surroundings, both physically and mentally. So again, I return to the source. I look at the miracles that exist around me. I fill my ears with the sound of the Quran, and my eyes with the sight of the sky. I breathe: inhale and exhale. I realize that, ironically, we are alone in our struggles.

More precisely, we are unique in our struggles. Each of us are given tests that no one else faces, and each of us are rewarded for those tests individually.

Strangely, I find peace in this solitude.

Knowing that my own strength is the determinant of the depth of difficulty I will face, I know that there is nothing I cannot overcome, nothing that will overwhelm or defeat me. So, I put my trust in Allah ‫ ﷻ‬and cross the bridge. i

“

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Lunatic BY: EASA KHAN

“TOBA TEK SINGH”

“I don’t quite see the connection,” she said. “ ‘Toba Tek Singh’ by Saadat Manto,” I explained, “is about a guy, a real lunatic, who was living in Pakistan, to be shipped to India after the partition. However, he refused to be moved because it would mean forfeiting his home. After he couldn’t reconcile which side it would be better to be a part of, he decided he would stand his ground and stay where he wanted to.”

“Right,” she said. “But how is it connected to you?”

“Because, man,” I continued, “that’s how I felt, how we’ve all felt at some point about our identity! Our identity is usually made up of several parts and not easily placed in a single category. We are forced to pick a side of ourselves based on other people’s opinions of how we should conduct ourselves. If we listen to them, we never really feel like we belong 100% to either side. In that mess, you can either have people dictate how you should be, or you can stand your ground and be authentic to yourself by celebrating your individuality. Like Toba Tek Singh, don’t move because people tell you to.”

She wasn’t really listening. “Okay, sorry.” She hadn’t been listening. “Alright. Tell me your story again.”

“SENT OFF TO THE BORDER”

“What are you getting for Christmas?” one kid asked. I hated that question, because I had been so good at hiding the things that made me Pakistani, but I knew that I couldn’t hide it anymore.

Once they knew that I didn’t celebrate Christmas, they’d know I was different.

“He doesn’t celebrate Christmas,” someone said. The kids looked at me confused. I have had to go through this conversation every year since elementary school.

“I celebrate Eid,” I explained.

Cautiously, they’d ask, “what’s Eid?” The way they asked the question made me feel like an alien. In fact, this whole season made me feel excluded. I loved seeing the Christmas decorations, but I knew that it wasn’t for me. It belonged to everyone around me. I felt like an outsider. I told myself that I could never be fully accepted at school if I wasn’t Canadian, and back then, being Canadian meant not being Pakistani. If I was going to fit in, I couldn’t just hide being Pakistani anymore, I’d have to leave that part of me entirely.

“GO STRUTTING AROUND LIKE THE DEVIL!”

It’s not easy to deny the existence of half of your identity. In trying to be more Canadian, I was actively betraying the lessons I was taught at home. For example, I was eating foods from friends that I was told I couldn’t eat. I was making an effort to never refer to things in Urdu. That part was especially difficult because I was already losing my fluency in it, and avoiding the language altogether was weakening whatever understanding I had left. They were small changes, and even though I told myself I’d feel more Canadian if I continued, they weighed heavily on my conscience.

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“A MUSLIM LUNATIC”

Fast-forward a bit past grade three, and I found myself at the age when most kids are put into religious programs. Instead of a weekend program, I was enrolled in an Islamic school. There, everyone looked like me, yet I still found myself feeling like an outsider. At this new school, most of the kids were Pakistani, like me, and I didn’t have to aggressively renounce my Pakistani heritage anymore. It was a relief, but I still couldn’t let my guard down. Yes, I was Pakistani, but I wasn’t as Pakistani as the other kids. So, to fit in, I threw myself back into the things that made me a brown boy, embracing them like a soft blanket. In my need to be accepted by a new group, I rejected the notion of being Canadian.

“NOTHING COULD BE LEARNED FROM THE NEWSPAPERS”

My charade was a failure. I couldn’t speak Urdu anymore, and the handful of words that I did know, I felt uncomfortable using because the kids laughed at my poor pronunciation. It didn’t stop at school either. As I wanted to be more Pakistani, I tried paying more attention to the Pakistani traditions we had at home. Even though my family was supportive, I was still always reminded in some way that I wasn’t a real Pakistani. Seeing my grandfather realize that I didn’t understand a single word he said to me in Urdu was humiliating. I felt more of an imposter as a Pakistani than as a Canadian.

“TRAPPED IN THE DILEMMA”

I hated feeling like an abomination. I’d sit cursing the East and the West. Balancing my Canadian and Pakistani identities was important to me, but it felt impossible to do. I felt stranded. Trapped in a no man’s land.

“RIGHT WHERE IT WAS!”

“They’re not mutually exclusive,” Mama said.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means that they don’t have to exist separately. Being Pakistani and being Canadian are different, but that doesn’t mean that one negates the other. You’re not just a Pakistani, or just a Canadian, you’re a Pakistani-Canadian.”

“But isn’t that kind of a cop-out answer?” I asked.

“Who told you that?!”

Nobody had told me that. In my need for acceptance, I convinced myself that I could only be part of one group, and being part of that one group meant that I had to be just like them.

As a young child, I internalized the surprised looks of other kids who found out I didn’t celebrate Christmas and the teasing from those who realized I couldn’t speak Urdu. I had internalized all of that as an issue with the fundamentals of my identity — of my very being. Yet, looking for acceptance from external sources was an easy way out, it was the real cop-out answer, instead of finding peace from within. People were trying to take me from my home, making me feel like a lunatic, and telling me that picking a single side was the way it was supposed to be. I let them control my identity for years, but it couldn’t last. I needed to dig my heels in the ground and lay claim to my unique Pakistani-Canadian identity.

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“IN BETWEEN, ON THAT PIECE OF GROUND THAT HAD NO NAME, LAY TOBA TEK SINGH.”

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Here Since the Beginning YUSUF SHEIKH

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oronto is often known as one of the cultural melting pots of the world.

Within it, the Muslim community comprises of around 424,930 individuals, housing the largest Muslim population in Canada. For many of us, being a Muslim is a strong part of our identity, and places of worship are often recognized as places we can draw strength from. Within Toronto and its prominent universities, we are blessed to have several mosques and Muslim Students’ Associations (MSA).

We take these blessings for granted and rarely question how this Islamic infrastructure came to be or the struggle it took to establish Islam in Toronto. The story of Toronto’s first mosque merits discussion, enabling us to value the contributions made by Muslims before us and the infrastructure we have today.

The Muslim Society of Toronto opened its first Islamic centre in 1961 and was founded by Regip Assim. At the time, there were approximately 1500 Muslims in Canada, including 400 Muslims in Toronto. During that year, an old leather shop was purchased by said society and converted into a mosque by a group of motivated Muslims.

The shop needed to be fixed, and members had to work together to get it up and running, with some individuals even working for years without payment to ensure Muslims had a prayer space. Many were far away from their homes, sacrificing their comfort to foster a new community in Toronto.

As the Muslim community grew, the mosque began to thrive, expanding its influence to people from countries like Albania, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iraq, Pakistan, and Turkey. Praying side by side with Muslims from other ethnicities sowed the seeds for the inclusivity and diversity we see today in our ummah (community).

This space was even used for Ramadan gatherings and Islamic schools. Women played a massive role in fundraising and, most importantly, in providing the next generation of Muslims with their education.

The community continued to grow in size and stature, leading people like Malcolm X to visit the area. Interestingly, the members who were involved in founding the first Islamic centre also founded the Muslim Students’ Association of Toronto in 1965. The community kept growing and eventually needed more space.

In 1969, they moved inside a Presbyterian church that later came to be known as the Jami Mosque.

The journey of how Muslims began to establish a community in Toronto is important in helping us understand, remember, and appreciate what we have become today. Now, Toronto has over 50 mosques and several prayer rooms at the University of Toronto’s campus. We have come a long way, becoming a large community that supports and uplifts each other. From this origin, we can truly appreciate the value that prayer spaces and mosques have for Muslims today. In these spaces, we feel a sense of community, belonging, and most importantly, closeness to our faith. From this anecdote, we can see the power we have as a collective; when we unite, we can create change in our world today. The University of Toronto’s MSA was the first to be established in Canada, and is now the university’s largest student club, and it all started from a leather shop on Dundas Street.

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THIS PAGE IS HERE IF YOURE DOING A 2 PAGE LAYOUT JUST TO HELP WITH LAYING IT OUT AND GENERAL LOOKS / CONSISTANCY .

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE OF MUSLIM REPRESENTATION THIS PAGE MAY BE DELETDELETE WHAT YOU DO NOT NEED.

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rep·re·sen·ta·tion ED IF YOURE WORKING ON (noun) ONLY 11. The PAGEON THE RIGHT action of speaking or acting on behalf of someone, or the state of being so represented 2. The description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way or as being of a certain nature.

SIDE “PAGES” TAB CLICK ON n October, I binged two shows on Despite the accolades, Ramy polarized are always centered around their otherness, THE AND DELETE. Netflix’s2ND Top TenPAGE list: the supernatural Muslim viewers for, what I infer is the whether they embrace it or try to escape it. horror miniseries Midnight Mass, and same reason that Midnight Mass and Squid THE MIDDLE BLEEDS WILL the dystopian thriller K-Drama Squid Game. Game did not: it portrayed a Muslim Despite no longer being as overtly Both shows featured Muslim characters in character that was so objectively flawed negative or damaging to the community’s NO LONGER OVERLAP. prominent roles — a beleaguered sheriff that audiences found it hard to root for image as they used to, the vast majority

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in Midnight Mass, and a desperate migrant worker transplanted from Pakistan to South Korea in Squid Game — that serve as the audience’s moral compass, grounding us both to the sickliness of the worlds they inhabit while remaining entirely faithful and steadfast despite their ordeals. They are, whether explicitly or implicitly, shown to be good Muslims. Both shows were lauded critically and commercially, and received substantial hype from within the Muslim community for their contribution to “good” Muslim representation.

him. It was bad representation because Ramy was a “bad” Muslim: he engaged in inappropriate behaviour while refusing to take responsibility for any of his actions.

title character, played by comedian Ramy Youssef, is hypocritical, self-absorbed, and contradictory as he tries to better himself through through his faith but falls short every time. It too garnered media attention after it was nominated for three Emmys, and received generally favorable reviews.

as that slowly changes, there is still a skewed focus on stories of young Muslims —usually second generation — who rebel against their parents, and by extension against their culture and/or religion. They still live in the shadow of a Western culture that is openly hostile to their very existence; their stories

of these stock Muslim characters still follow the same tropes: young Muslim women are still in need of saving from their toxic communities and young Muslim men are still either waiting Here’s the thing: the distinction between for redemption via secularization, good and bad representation isn’t as stark as or one step away from falling off we wish it was. the deep end through radicalization.

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The problem, it seems, has boiled down to one of tokenization and generalization. Since stories focusing on Muslim characters are still rare, audiences expect for the community —which has previously been brutishly marginalized and demeaned in the media— to be represented in the very best of lights.

Because of the diversity of the community (across racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic and class lines), there can be no story that condenses all these facets of identity within one narrative. Instead, there needs to be a greater focus on representing characters that are Muslim as people first, whose experiences are truthful and complex, and not as guardians and gatekeepers of their faith and community. m PHOTO // JOHN SMITH

WHEN YOU ARE DONE THE PAGE MAKE SURE YOUR PICTURES AND BG IMAGES/ COLORS ARE UP TO THEMuslim visibility in mainstream media been growing steadily over the past RED OUTLINE OF THEhas PAGEdecade. Post 9/11, most Muslim roles were heavily racialized with all roles casting only THESE ARE THE BLEEDS. South Asians or Arabs as flag-bearers of the Another show I recently binged was faith —TO and only ever portrayed as terrorists, WHEN YOU ARE READY Hulu’s Ramy, which explicitly aimed to morally ambiguous ultra-rich businessmen, increase Muslim visibility in mainstream oppressed SAVE FOR PRINTINGEX- women, or working-class media by following the life of an Egyptian- collateral damage. The lack of Muslims in the American New PRINT Jersey as hePDF grapples writers’ rooms has usually been cited as the PORTinAS with his religion and culture. Ramy, the reason for this harmful representation. Even

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rom Instagram feeds to Facebook posts, from university courses to television headlines, modernity sells itself on promises of comfort, security, leisure, and amusement. Its structures are designed to push us deeper and deeper into a la-la land where we only hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see. But there is something broken at the core of this cosmetic arrangement. The world isn’t meant to be this way.

Who doesn’t want YouTube to lead us to Reynold Poernomo once we’ve binged all of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares? Or for Instagram to lead us to @hanafimemes after we’ve spent the hour scrolling through Muslim Instagram? Let’s admit it, we all do; often without thinking much about what makes these recommendations possible.

Dr. Shoshana Zuboff, who has researched these algorithms extensively, cites a case where algorithms started suggesting nutritional supplements to a woman before she even knew she was pregnant — the algorithm knew before the woman did!

Such is the power of data. It knows our secrets, and actively uses them to tell us what to think, hear, and watch. Increasingly, it reinforces our preexisting opinions and biases, solidifying, instead of breaking the boxes we build around ourselves.

In a way, recommendation algorithms are a telling metaphor of the world around us. Just like the other levers of modernity, their goal is to make us happy. That this happiness may come at the expense of our social relations, our intellect, or our sense of purpose is largely irrelevant.

Nothing exemplifies this quite as well as the cycles of activism which saturate our social media spaces every few months. Two recent campaigns demonstrate these cycles of activism: one concerning forced evictions in Sheikh Jarrah and the other concerning World Food Program’s (WFP) report on ending global hunger.

It is always very encouraging for me to see the united front that we, as an ummah (community), present to the world when tensions flare up in Palestine and our brethren are threatened. The campaign which started in response to Palestinian evictions from Sheikh Jarrah was even more heartening because our voices resonated: with governments, civil society organizations, and businesses. But while we were being heard, I gradually felt that our social media spaces were becoming increasingly exclusionary towards ideas that did not fit the dominant narrative.

For example, a common theme on social media is that silence — regardless of context — is akin to complicity.

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There are so many things wrong with this framing especially as we have very prominent examples of companions of the Prophet Muhammad ‫ ﷺ‬detaching themselves from politics in their later lives. It is also a well-known maxim in Islamic jurisprudence that the silence of the layman, unlike that of the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬, does not imply approval as evidenced by Ibn Umar’s reluctance to rebel against Hajjaj Ibn Yusuf during the early Umayyad period.

The whole of (sunni) Islamic tradition is built upon the principle that there are co-equal methodologies of arriving at the truth - the four madhhabs (schools of jurisprudence: Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki). The legitimacy of these methodologies is not open to debate, even when they lead to dissenting outcomes. To frame our discourse, then, the way Bush framed his war on terror narrative — that one is either with us or against us — is a huge break from our own tradition.

But it is not solely our fault that our discourse ended up this way. Modernity is meant, by design, to stoke our emotions at the expense of our intellect. Neil Postman argued back in 1985 that the advent of television has fundamentally altered our epistemology. It has caused our attention spans to become shorter, our conversations to become more superficial, and our understanding to become more shallow. The dystopian character of modern society, he contends, echoes not Orwell’s 1984 — where people were coerced into submission – but rather Huxley’s Brave New World, where the proliferation of pointless amusement was used to exert control. This applies, he continued, as much to sitcoms as it does to “serious” programming, such as the news. Thirty-five years on, the analysis still holds.

A good, recent example of this could be seen in the burst of memes, reactions, counterreactions and ‘analyses’ that followed the World Food Program’s report on global hunger.

News media fixated its attention on the supposed claim made by the WFP director, David Beasley, that two percent of Elon Musk’s wealth, or six billion dollars, could “solve world hunger”. Musk, supposedly a very smart person, bought into the story and expressed his willingness to provide the money if given a detailed plan of how the money would be spent.

This raised a major concern. WFP’s report never said six billion dollars could solve world hunger. It merely asserted that the sum could defer imminent starvation for the fortyfive million individuals - one-twentieth of all undernourished people in the world - living under threat of famine. Had news outlets, and Musk, actually taken the liberty of reading the report they would have known.

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THIS PAGE IS HERE IF YOURE DOING A 2 PAGE LAYOUT It is easy to attribute stories like these to naivety. What harm can a few memes do, JUST TO HELP WITH LAYright? But look closer and you’ll begin to see the impact; in the gradual erosion of trust ING IT OUT ANDfor GENERAL UN institutions, in the exponential growth of fanbases for billionaires like Musk, in the appalling desensitization of issues like global hunger. This is the real cost of simple LOOKS / CONSISTANCY narratives. The cost. of our querencia.

So where do we go from here, one may ask? I don’t know.

DELETE WHAT YOU DO NOT In a way, there is no escape from the news cycle. No refuge from social media. No redemption from modernity. Certainly, many of these issues are systemic and require NEED. communities to mobilize and collectively work towards solutions, but let’s leave that for another time. As important as political action is, I want to focus on what can be done on a more personal level.

THIS PAGE MAY BE DELETThe Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬laid great emphasis on developing enduring relationships within ED IF YOURE WORKING ON society. He advised us to be cognizant of the needs of our neighbors, to visit the sick, and to uphold ties with our relatives. He advised us to be forbearing and forgiving, to actively ONLY 1 PAGE- ON THE RIGHT overlook the faults of others, and to find good within them. The Quran goes as far as to rebuke Abu Bakr, in Surah SIDE “PAGES” TAB CLICK ONNur, when he pledged to stop supporting one of his relatives involved in slandering Aisha. By what moral authority, then, are we to sever ties with our THE 2ND PAGE AND brethren? DELETE. THE MIDDLE BLEEDS Let’s start WILL by attempting to be more forgiving of each other, especially for the things we disagree on. The world isn’t supposed to be a querencia. As the master of all mankind, NO LONGER OVERLAP. Muhammad ‫ ﷺ‬said, “The world is a prison for the believer” (Muslim, 2956).

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“ ND WE CREATED YOU IN PAIRS” (78:8)

IMAN GHAZI

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A

s Muslims, we spend our lives attempting to perfect our deen (religion) the way the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬always wanted.

We pray the way he did, we eat the way he did, and we even sleep the way he did. Our daily lives are meant to follow in the footsteps of our beloved Messenger. However, over time it has become apparent that part of the ummah (community) has lost touch with much of Islam’s authenticity, and many of us have become victims of cultural interference and stigma.

Anas Ibn Malik ‫ رضي هللا عنها‬narrates that marriage completes half of our deen. It is half of what we are meant to live for. However, it seems that the essence of marriage as taught to us in Islam has been lost to many, and there is no better source to remind us than the life of the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬himself. This applies to everyone who has yet to find their life partner, as well as those who already have.

Our beloved Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬left us with an understanding of what a healthy marriage should entail, the kind of relationship we should have with our spouses, and their significance in our lives. Yet, there remains a stigma regarding what it truly means to be married. After looking at the life of the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬, it becomes clear that there are major aspects of marriage that have been swept under the rug for various reasons, one of which is the misconception behind an honest and openly loving relationship, a concept that many find themselves uncomfortable with discussing.

There have been times when a marriage may have taken place for the sake of completing an obligation; however, marriage does not end after the nikkah (Islamic marriage ceremony). As taught to us through the Prophet’s ‫ ﷺ‬experience with his wives, one should find strength and comfort in a marital union. As children, we grow up studying the seerah (the life of the Prophet) and find ourselves in awe of the beautiful stories of the Messenger ‫ ﷺ‬and the Ummahaat Ul Mu’mineen (mothers of the believers).

We see these stories from the beginning of Prophethood until the very end. Muhammad ‫ ﷺ‬is the prime example of the ways we should draw strength and comfort from our spouses. His life was filled with hardships that he endured for the sake of the ummah, but who did Allah ‫ ﷺ‬place on this Earth to support him when he needed it most? His family, friends, community, and most importantly, his wives.

‫عنها‬ she he was

The love between the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬and Khadija ‫ رضي هللا‬serves as a model for Muslims today because was his source of strength, his home, and someone could trust with his unfathomable struggles. This true love as it was demonstrated to us centuries ago.

While his journey of Prophethood began in the comfortable embrace of his wife Khadija ‫رضي هللا عنها‬, it ended in the embrace of Aisha ‫رضي هللا عنها‬. As the Prophet’s ‫ ﷺ‬health deteriorated, He told his wife of the pain he was experiencing. Described in The Sealed Nectar, moments before his soul was taken, he found comfort in leaning against Aisha ‫رضي هللا عنها‬. He requested her to help him use and soften a siwak. This instance was seen as a blessing for her and for the Messenger ‫ ﷺ‬as it was a beautiful moment of comfort. When He was at his physically weakest point, His spiritual strength was at its highest; a blessing granted to him by Allah ‫ ﷻ‬through Aisha ‫رضي هللا عنها‬.

Of course, there is much of the life of the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬ between these two points, including the trials and tribulations faced at the hands of opposing parties. Yet, Allah ‫ﷻ‬, The Most Merciful, blessed him and the entire ummah with the beautiful responsibility of marriage. Despite what culture may perpetuate, arrogance and pride will pose an obstacle in any union, and leaves no room for what is most important.

That being said, It is the sunnah to be good to our spouses.

It is the sunnah to make an effort in creating a relationship where individuals can rely on one another.

And it is a sunnah to be each other’s source of strength.

‫إِلَ ْيهَا‬ ‫لِّقَ ْو ۢ ٍم‬

‫لِّتَ ْس ُكنُ ٓو ۟ا‬ ‫ت‬ ٍ ۢ َ‫َل َءاي‬

‫ق لَ ُكم ِّم ْن أَنفُ ِس ُك ْم أَ ْز َو ۭ ًجا‬ َ َ‫‏ َو ِم ْن َءايَتِ ِٓۦه أَ ْن َخل‬ ‫ك‬ َ ِ‫َو َج َع َل بَ ْينَ ُكم َّم َو َّد ۭةً َو َرحْ َمةً ۚ إِ َّن فِى َذل‬ ‫ُون‬ َ ‫ يَتَفَ َّكر‬‎

And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates, that you may find tranquility in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed, in that are signs for a people who give thought (Quran 30:21)

Jabir Ibn Abdullah ‫ رضي هللا عنها‬narrates that when the message was first revealed to Prophet Muhammad ‫ﷺ‬, it came through Angel Jibreel ‫عليه السالم‬. The Angel was a majestic sight, but terrifying and difficult for the human mind to comprehend.

After experiencing the first revelation, the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬was bewildered and scared. He raced down Mount Hira, saw the Angel once more, then went straight to his wife, Khadija ‫رضي هللا عنها‬, “The Mother of the Believers.” He sought solace in her, informing her of the events that occured, and rather than mocking or questioning him, Khadija ‫ رضي هللا عنها‬gave him words of comfort.

She gave him the strength that he had needed most at that time.

Ultimately, she was the first believer and his only supporter.

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Erfan Ehsan

JAHILIYYAH AND

GHARBZADEGI

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W

hat does it mean to be authentic? Is human nature and authenticity purely material as Marx would argue? Is the Übermensch, he who creates his own values, the most authentic as Nietzsche would say? Is authentic human life found in career, in hobbies, or in the pleasures of this dunya? These ideas are incompatible with Islam, and those who conjured up such philosophies were sorely misguided. They looked to the earth and saw themselves reflected in its waters, and thus created their egocentric philosophies because they were led astray by the false beauty of worldly things.

To be authentic is to find and live as one’s true self. The Lord is the Creator, the Most High, and has complete knowledge of heaven and earth and the secrets of our heart. So what could be more authentic than to worship and serve the Lord?

Therefore as Muslims, we discover our true selves through submission to Allah ‫ﷻ‬. When we think about authenticity, we look first towards Allah ‫ﷻ‬, who is al-Haqq:

ِ‫َٰذلِ َك ِبأَ َّن ٱللَّ َه ُه َو ٱلْ َح ُّق َوأَنَّ ُه يُ ْحى‬ ‫ش ٍء ق َِدي ٌر‬ ٰ َ ‫ٱلْ َم ْو َ ٰت َوأَنَّ ُه َع‬ ْ َ ‫ل ك ُِّل‬

This is because God is the Truth; He brings the dead back to life; He has power over everything (22:6).

We find our authenticity in spirituality because religion is what defines humanity and raises man above animals. When the Lord sent down signs upon His servant ‫ ﷺ‬to bring us out of the darkness into the light, He saved us from jahiliyyah (ignorance), and showed us the meaning of our lives. As Sayyid Qutb ‫رحمة‬ ‫ اهلل عليه‬wrote: “During the Makkan period, the Qur’an explained to man the secret of his existence and the secret of the universe surrounding him. It told him who he is, where he has come from, for what purpose and where he will go in the end, Who brought him from non-existence into being, to Whom he will return, and what his final disposition will be.”

But today we are living in the modern world, and we have fallen far from the glory of the time of the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬. Our degeneration can be traced to those influential thinkers who lost faith in the Unseen. In their arrogance, they proclaimed to understand the universe through empiricism alone, and thus reduced us to material beings.

Ironically, their movement was called the “Enlightenment.” These ideas have served as the religion of the West for centuries now, and have led ultimately to the worship of machines and pleasure.

Though born in the West these ideas have now spread unobstructed throughout the world, because we have been infected with gharbzadegi (weststruckness).

Gharbzadegi is when we become enamoured by the West and seek to imitate its practices because we view them as superior. Through our infatuation with the West we discard our traditions, although the West will always look down on us.

Eventually, we abandon our spirituality and reach the final outcome of gharbzadegi, which is the return to jahiliyyah. We know that even many Islamic societies have been infected with gharbzadegi, and everyday ignorance encroaches upon belief under the banner of Westernization.

Today there are those who call Islam repressive and oppressive because Islam teaches self-restraint and self-mastery, whereas they believe licentiousness is the only freedom. They say that Islam must be reformed, modernized, liberalized, or even Westernized! If we evaluate our culture and religion using criteria prescribed to us by the West, inevitably we will become alienated from ourselves. That is gharbzadegi, when we become apologists for Islam and try to justify our religion according to Western standards. Islam requires neither our apologies nor our justifications, and its truth is self-evident. When we are ruled by our whims and claim that religion is repressive or oppressive, we lose sight of man’s role in the universe and become like the one who abandoned the signs of Allah ‫ ﷻ‬to follow his own worldly desires:

َ‫َو َل ْو ِش ْئ َنا َل َر َف ْع َن ٰـهُ ِب َها َولَ ٰـ ِك َّنهُ أَ ْخلَد‬ ِ‫إِ َل ْٱلَ ْر ِض َوٱتَّ َب َع َه َوىٰهُ َف َم َثلُهُ كَ َمثَل‬ ُ‫ٱلْكَل ِْب إِن تَ ْح ِم ْل َعلَ ْي ِه يَلْ َه ْث أَ ْو ت ْ َُتكْه‬ ‫َيلْ َهث َّٰذلِكَ َمث َُل ٱلْ َق ْو ِم ٱلَّ ِذي َن كَ َّذ ُبوا‬ ‫ِب َٔـا َي ٰـ ِت َنا فَٱ ْق ُص ِص ٱلْق َ​َص َص لَ َعلَّ ُه ْم‬ َ‫يَ َت َفكَّ ُرون‬

If it had been Our will, We could

have used these signs to raise him high, but instead he clung to the earth and followed his own desireshe was like a dog that pants with a lolling tongue whether you drive it away or leave it alone. Such is the image of those who reject Our signs. Tell them the story so that they may reflect (7:176).

(7 176).

The rulers of the modern world tell us that we are mere beings of matter, nothing more than a collection of carbon chains. What a joyless life! They cling to the earth and lack spirituality, and it is no wonder that the richest countries suffer tragic rates of depression. Meanwhile, our Prophet ‫ﷺ‬, who broke his fast with only water and dates, was more than happy to serve his Lord. Our hearts are satisfied only with something more than earthly pleasures. Yes, we are beings of carbon, but never forget that the Creator also breathed into us His Spirit:

‫ْت ِفي ِه ِمن‬ ُ ‫َف ِإ َذا َس َّويْتُهُ َونَ َفخ‬ ‫ُّرو ِحى َف َق ُعوا لَهُ َسـٰجِ ِدي َن‬

When I have fashioned him and breathed My spirit into him, bow down before him (15:29).

Thus we must live in a way that acknowledges our creation from both clay and spirit. The Lord created man and said that even the angels must bow down to him. We must live in a way that is worthy of such honour. That is the meaning of a spiritual life, and that is the only life which we as Muslims can call authentic. i

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ِ َّ ‫بِ ْس ِم‬ ‫ٱلل ٱل َّر ْح َٰم ِن ٱل َّر ِحي ِم‬ ٰ

An-Nisaa

In the name of God, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful

MADIHA FATHIMA SYED

Please don’t underestimate me The strength I carry comes from all the people before me I have broad shoulders with the stories of my ummah written between them They are my backbone, my stability, my imaan From my mother to the mother of Islam, Khadijah ‫رضي هللا عنها‬ I have taken their lessons and murmured these stories till they were engraved in my mind We can go back in time Where Khadijah ‫ رضي هللا عنها‬and the Sahabis once walked In the depths of the Makkan sand Little girls were buried for the shame they brought upon their family Islam like rain to a long drought These girls were given dignity, given life From the sands, they rose Fighters, scholars, and mothers Gifting us with their names, so indeed they live on Their noor everlasting You can see them in my friends You can see them in my sisters You can see them in the woman who held me in her womb, Ammi Her existence is proof that you cannot enter Jannah without struggle Jannah is at her feet yet her feet are calloused and rough, worn Those little girls Allah ‫ سبحانه وتعالى‬saved We are the children of those women Ya Allah, Ya Alim it is only you who will know what we brave Muslims were taught to thrive To grow in the ungrowable Like zam zam in the desert between Mount Safa and Mount Marwa And running between these hills seven times looking for an answer, searching for an end We found the answer, the children stop crying, life stops spinning for a moment We find a humming peace of trickling water between the two drylands

‫ْر يُ ْسرًا‬ ِ ‫فَإِ َّن َم َع ْٱل ُعس‬ ‫ْر يُ ْسرًا‬ ِ ‫إِ َّن َم َع ْٱل ُعس‬

For, indeed with every difficulty there is relief; verily with every difficulty there is relief. (94:5-6) Between two difficulties we found relief, thereafter after we will find relief again Ya Lateef, what beauty He has put within ourselves and these words So when difficulty does strike I look to the past for courage, using language as my passage Remembering those before us Passing on those names and strength to the ones after us Bodies of the present, souls of the past With my history and my tongue, I prove relentless in my fight How can you underestimate me When strength is written in my Qadr.

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TEAM PICKS Fiction

Dante’s Indiana Randy Boyagoda

Azadi Arundhati Roy

Unmarriageable Soniah Kamal

Hana Khan Carries On Uzma Jalaluddin

Travelling home: essays on Islam in Europe Shaikh Abdul Hakim Murad

Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World Jason Hickel

The Deficit Myth Stephanie Kelton

Mad, Bad & That Can Be Dangerous to Know Arranged: A Samira Ahmed Muslim Love Story Huda Fahmy

NON FICTION

Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption Rafia Zakaria

The Secrets of Divine Love A. Helwa

Revival of the Heart Javad Shomali and Zahraa El-Kabengi

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