Letters to My Daughter

April. May. That is the progression of months if you didn't know already. But that sequence sends chills up my spine, and beads of sweat under my pits. It signifies the end of college. The last four weeks before the end of college, and the official start to married life in the suburbs of New Jersey. Life is about the relationships you make, about the friendships and moments you share with your loved ones. I made one pivotal relationship, and that was my husband. This blog was a huge part of that relationship because it was the medium through which we exchanged idea, which to me are the most interesting of things. Some girls like jewelry. Some girls like flowers. Others like postcards. Since then, I have been self-enclosed in a bubble. I made the bubble with my impossible schedule, and endless appointments and activities. I've also chosen to do things by myself rather than with people. I have not scheduled time for friendships, lunches, dinners, parties, or the things that suppo...

I remember as a freshman dreading Valentine's Day, regarding it as a sappy, stupid holiday for sex-crazed kids with not enough homework and too much hormones. I remember looking out from my 12 story apartment on Union Square West, watching the pairs of heads walking together. I imagined men and women laughing, smiling, giggling and flirting. I thought them pathetic and stupid to waste their time on frivolous fantasies of love. In fact, my first Valentine's Da was spent listening to a lecture from my parents, who came with food for me. I had left my cellphone in my apartment, while I was across the hall, watching The Daily Show with the guys. Two of my extended roommates that year were Presidential Scholars, (both in medical school now), the third was a Honors Psychology student. There was no funny business going on between us, in our asylum of Anti-Valentine's Day. I was happy for my actual roommates who were dressed to get laid, with their faces layered in shiny stuff and ...

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Assalaamu alaikum, Haroon was a wonderful person I met by the will of Allah on Hajj. Here is his Hajj reflection and perhaps an inspiring story to all of us about the will of Allah and our need to invoke Allah with pure intention: Asalaamu Alaikum Hujjaj, I pray that this message finds you all in the best of health and iman, bi ithnillah. I think this Hajj Reflections email chain is a great idea. I know many of us have so many experiences that we would like to share with others, but somehow we just can't find the words to express what we witnessed. In other words, we're speechless. After taking part in an incredible event like Hajj, anyone would remain speechless. However, I think it is time that we put some of our experiences to words so that we may share them with others and help elevate one another's imaan, insha'allah. Maybe by the end of this email chain we could compile these reflections into a book and have it published for all to read. So I...

Alhamdullilah. I am so grateful that I took Philosophy of Religion class. Listening to students espouse secular humanism made me realize how fortunate I am to be a Muslim. I feel like issues of religion versus secularism, religion versus state, these are not applicable to my idelogical framework because the Quran provides a textual basis for truth that is accessible to anyone who wants to read it. A system is already in place. There are things that need work within that system, but God has created the conceptual framework. It gets translated, but the understanding of that time is a continual process that keeps God at the center of discourse. I love the idea that God is the center of discourse. In my class, for the strangest reason, people almost never talked about GOD. It was a PHILOSOPHY of RELIGION class, and religion was talked about mostly in the monotheistic tradition, yet still, people hardly felt a stake in trying to defend why God exists. The arguments for the existence of God ...

Art and Empire in the Persian World The meaning of art, philosophy, and religion is to direct man’s attention to riddles, secrets, and questions. It sometimes leads to certain knowledge but more often to an awareness of ignorance or to transforming our ignorance of which we are not aware into ignorance of which we are aware. (107) These are the words of Izetbegovic, author of Islam between East and West, in which he writes about the importance of art, especially in distinguishing culture and civilization. He suggests that the value assigned to art is the awareness it provides in illuminating riddles, secrets and questions of the individual, her goals, her dreams, her inner life. Despite the politics of power involved in commissioning artwork as a source of legitimizing governments and the rule of kings, art does not necessarily serve the needs of the state alone. Even in propaganda images circulated in manuscripts from the 14th through 15th centuries, there is an element of person...

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