Sometimes I feel like I prefer animals to people. I think my cats are the best example. They are just SO freaking cute. <3

The only winners are the ones who believe in themselves.

The only losers are the ones who are convinced that they are.

Referees and judges get yelled at all the time for “bad calls.” The hardest part is when YOU’RE the one who made the bad call. Is it that bad of a call when you thought you were doing the right thing?

And what if the final decision is made, but you discover that you were… wrong?

There are three steps of knowledge. “Knowledge is three hand-spans: the first breeds arrogance, the second breeds humility, and in the third, you realize you know nothing.” –Sufyan ath-Thawri

At the end of the day, nobody knows anything. We just try to.

Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity. It will have [the consequence of] what [good] it has gained, and it will bear [the consequence of] what [evil] it has earned. “Our Lord, do not impose blame upon us if we have forgotten or erred. Our Lord, and lay not upon us a burden like that which You laid upon those before us. Our Lord, and burden us not with that which we have no ability to bear. And pardon us; and forgive us; and have mercy upon us. You are our protector, so give us victory over the disbelieving people.” (Qur’an 2:286)

Original Artwork– Arabic Calligraphy

There is no got but God

Will be updated with the author’s original photography/portfolio/creative works/etc.

…eventually.

In the meantime, enjoy this video. Usually it’s to “troll” people, but I actually enjoy listening to it.

trololololol.

:)

–Salama

“Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I’m one of them.”
- Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

So true, unfortunately.

Found at goodbooks.com!

Hello everybody!

Here is a lovely video about the USC Office of Religious Life:

http://orl.usc.edu/about/video/

I am also submitting this website for a competition sponsored by USC. Please pray for me!

Sincerely,

Salama

Hello everybody!

If you feel anxious and stressed, and are currently a student at a university, please take advantage of the opportunities available to you. I promise you won’t get hurt.

Also, a good book to read would be “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger. Everyone needs a catcher, and USC iFaith will be your catcher if you need one! :)

In other news, the Muslim Student Union is having an event today! Hosted by our lovely director of Student Life, Ali H. Mir and one of my favorite professors, Dr. Sherman Jackson, please come to learn about environmental justice, and what Muslims do about it! I promise you won’t be disappointed. Books like “Green Deen” are also a wonderful resource.

Also, notes for Dr. Sherman Jackson’s class (REL 137g) are available for students with disabilities. Feel free to contact your TA if you have any questions.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Salama

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…..?

http://maniacmuslim.com/?p=285

^lol. Story of American University life for most Muslim women.

To the advocates of calling out my Muslim friends:

Today, I discovered that outside one of my favorite high schools in the entire world, a band of people deemed it necessary to protest educating our children about Muhammad bin Abdullah, the Prophet of Islam.

While I would normally say that a parent is free to protect his or her children as they see fit, protecting a child from knowledge certainly is not. There is considerable controversy surrounding the Irvine 11 case and what has happened and what was done—nonetheless, children KNOWING who Muhammad was and is to the over 1.6 billion Muslims around the world is not detrimental to your child’s learning.

Let me repeat, is not detrimental to your child’s education.

In all honesty, I cried when I heard about this, over Facebook of all places. Some of my dearest family friends currently attend Northwood High School, and are active Muslims and wonderful leaders in our community. As a student at Arnold O. Beckman High School in Irvine, I was certainly considered among these “Muslim activists.”

Let me describe the average Muslim in our beautiful cities and lovely counties here in California; while there is a diversity of opinions and peoples, most of us are just that: people. Some of us are religious… others are not. Some of us do drugs. Others do not. Some of us love our education, while others would rather be playing videogames. Some of us are tall, thin, dark, light, genius, and perhaps maybe a little “special” in our abilities.

I will proceed to describe a few different students from this “radical” Muslim Student Association at Northwood, and then give you the whole story of a young Muslim woman living in Irvine at this moment.

One example is a young fellow who is very bright, funny, brave, and most of all, understands the difference between what is manifestly right and what is manifestly wrong. His father is the kindest man I have ever met, and is a very successful engineer to boot. His mother is also an engineer, but chooses to stay home and raise her kids because that’s just the right thing to do—after all, what is more important than your child’s future? They are Egyptian, Americans, and international “immigrants,” with 3 children who are American citizens.

Another is a young man who was raised in the inner city—he knows what poverty looks like. He knows what blood is, tears are, sacrifices, duty, national pride… he wants to be firefighter, to serve others because he knows that giving is far more important than receiving. He’s from Afghanistan, is a full American citizen, and knows that serving in the spirit of the next world (i.e. Heaven and Hell) is far more important than worrying about what he can have now… whether it’s alcohol, drugs, or something that will get him into trouble.

Next is a high school female who wears the traditional Islamic head covering—the hijab—because she knows that covering up is beautiful in God’s eyes. She sincerely believes that her character, not her clothes, makes her a better person. She’s just a sophomore in high school—barely 15, yet acts like she’s 20. By volunteering at her local Arabic Saturday School at the mosque, she knows she’s teaching kids what it means to be a Muslim in America. Unfortunately, her calls for “Islamic Awareness Month” at the high school level fall on deaf ears. Ears that perhaps want to help, but can’t afford to worry about what a minority community in a very prosperous and beautiful area might feel is important to share.

Another young fellow is just as smart as anybody, a second generation Pakistani with hardworking and smart parents. His excellence in math, and his clear intelligence distinguish him from other Muslims and students who would try to do better, but maybe aren’t able to because they’re afraid to. After all, Muslims are like “the bad guys” right now in international politics… right?

And finally, there’s one student who completely undermines the arguments of all the needless, nonsense political rhetoric in our media. Her psychological torments and worries of our future in education are enough to bring Jesus back from the dead and beg for the peace and love we need in this world.

This student was always different. She’s uncommonly tall—right about 6’0” in her sneakers, prancing around her university like a little kid. Many commented on her youthful exuberance as that befitting a model, with her dark eyes and constantly smiling features. She disagreed, and commented that her inability to pretend to be a beauty queen prevented her from even thinking modeling anything except molecules.

However, as a child, she was very pensive and quiet and disliked speaking because she knew that if she said something wrong, her mom would frown slightly or someone else might think it was weird. She tried to be very careful with her words, but she really, REALLY loved to talk. Not just about herself or the people around her, but about peace, justice, love, mercy, religion, salvation, politics, presidents, important people, not important people, calculus, physics, the meaning of life, and everything in between.

But there was one thing she couldn’t ever properly address. September 11^th, 2001… I mean, everybody knew how she felt, right? It must be horrible to be stereotyped by your religion or personal or communal beliefs. Or worse, just because your head scarf wasn’t a headband, you were bullied like an outcast because your name sounded kind of like “Osama bin Laden.” You might have slapped a kid in the face for telling you to scoot over on the bus you “terrorist”—the indignity! A 12-year-old telling you, a 13-year-old, to scoot over because you were “Muz-lim.” (The student was forced to apologize profusely by her parents by calling the fellow at home to say she didn’t mean to hurt him, but that his words hurt her more.)

In spite of all this, she grew up and became a stellar student—and by stellar, I mean uncommonly stellar. Legend has it that her GPA was around 4.88, but she can only attest to the fact that it was actually 4.00 unweighted… 34 units of community college credit at IVC, as well as a complete load of AP classes while completing her normal 4 years of high school. You know, AP Calculus BC, AP US History, AP Chemistry, AP English Literature, AP Spanish, AP Computer Science, AP Government, and AP Stats. Everyone does that, right? And getting A+ in AP US History was what the good students got, right? And everyone gets a 5 (the highest score, meaning mastery of the subject), so it’s okay for her to be happy and proud of herself, right? I mean, she’s just trying to get into a good college.

Let’s not forget the activities, right? She’s not just that Muslim girl who’s unbearably smart in class. She’s also that girl who’s treasurer of Key Club, an international community service organization. Or that JV basketball co-captain who wasn’t Hakeem Olajuwon on the court, but she sure thought about him when she played. Or that crazy math maniac who would go to CalTech-Harvey Mudd math competitions to compete against kids who probably could differentiate faster than she could think just because they were more dedicated to solving math problems than she was. Or say random things just because it was funny and somehow related to integrating a rate law in order to determine a simpler relationship between the concentration and the equilibrium constant…

Thankfully, she did get into a good college. In fact, she got into so many good universities, her head felt like it was going to explode. All the best… maybe Stanford, maybe Harvard, maybe Yale, maybe Dartmouth. But she knew she wanted to stay close to home. She wanted to live in California with her family, not because she can’t live without her family… she could. If she had to. But it would be unnecessarily difficult, so she had to choose between four institutions of higher learning: UCLA, Cal, UCI, and USC. Each had their own benefits, ranging from public to private, and Reagent’s Scholarships (the highest award in the UC System) to a Trustee full tuition scholarship at USC.

Ultimately, it came down to two options. The University of California, Irvine, and the University of Southern California. To be honest, they are both amazing in their unique ways. She would have preferred to attend UCI because that’s what her family wanted… what kind of Muslim family wouldn’t want their daughter around to mentor their other children, and serve their community. And all of her friends went to UCI. You know, the ones that you love with all your heart and wish you never had to be apart for more than a few days at a time, max. A month, tops.

But due to budget issues in California, the student knew that if she went to UCI, or UCLA, or Cal, she might end up paying more than $30,000 a year… even if she commuted. Even if she invested in a house as her civil engineer father’s vacation home and her chemistry professor mother’s place to raise her grandchildren. Even if she did something amazing like win a photography competition for a $100,000 dollars because that would be just too much for one person.

In the end, she chose USC. She ignored its stereotypes about it being a “rich kid’s school” and the “University of Spoiled Children” because that’s not what education is about. It seemed like the best fit in a lot of ways—there was a Muslim Floor to live on, she didn’t pay much to live and eat, and she seemed to be doing okay in her classes. She failed a few midterms before she understood how the system worked, and finally pulled up back to a 3.7 GPA her first semester. She was already a staff photographer and writer for The Daily Trojan, and the freshman representative of the USC Muslim Student Union.

The worst part, though, was her mental breakdown.

Despite all her achievements, all her successes, and all her wins, something was not right with this student. She’s remarkably young… too young to be cynical, too young to hate anybody, too young to care about what a college professor might say to her different view on LGBT rights. And yet on New Year’s Day, of all days, she just started crying uncontrollably.

She didn’t cry for herself though.

She started crying for Egypt, and the political turbulence detracting from its fundamental role in preserving and maintaining fundamental human rights like the right to eat… the right to live… the right to freedom from slavery, whether religious OR political. She cried for the Irvine 11, eleven upstanding young men in her community whom she loved like brothers, yet were treated like criminals. She cried for her grandfather, who passed away in the summer of 2011. She cried for not taking better care of her sister, who had issues focusing on school but was the sweetest child in her world. She cried for her friend for getting engaged at the tender age of 18, yet clearly intent on making her young relationship work. She cried and cried and cried and cried… all the way to the hospital and back.

At the hospital. On New Year’s Day. Crying about the world’s problems with her dad and sister staring in baffled fear. Complaining to a nurse about how silly the world is, while coughing from food poisoning and a possible cold. While right beside her was another American family arguing and lamenting the near-fatal drunkenness of their 21-year-old son.

Fortunately, she survived. Survived what, exactly? It’s hard to say. Those closest to her said that it was probably stress combined with anxiety attacks combined with paranoia. Paranoid about what though?

Paranoid that people will actually look at her and see “threat to national security” rather than “emerging diplomat.” That one person would see a “failure of the education system in America” rather than a “passionate young woman dead set on becoming a pharmacist.” But worst of all, that they would see “jihadist, militant Muslim” rather than “a woman fighting with her mind and soul for peace.”

Just yesterday, the young woman was so relieved of finally overcoming her difficulties, that she spoke up at an event hosted by the “Levan Institute of Human Ethics” on “What Matters to Me and Why.” She didn’t say anything remarkable besides her blathering of thanks, crying, gratitude, and openly sharing her frustrations with USC to the Vice President of Student Affairs. And yet, everybody stared at her, while others came up to her and hugged her afterwards for being courageous enough to speak up when she could. She met with a President just the week before with 9 other Muslim Student Union leaders to discuss their concerns; she wanted to say thank you for the anti-discriminatory environment, and that’s all she did. That’s all she did.

This is the story of ONE young woman at USC. She has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Egypt, and aspires to be a Fulbright Fellow, a PhD. Candidate in education, and a source of answers to tough questions relating to the shar’iah law and the classical synthesis of Islamic orthodoxy/orthopraxy.

I suggest that before certain activists continue their activities, they just talk to the Muslim community. Not just the “typical” Muslim- it is a very difficult term to grasp. No, we mean the white Muslim, the African Muslim, the Malaysian Muslim, the young high school student Muslim, the college professor at USC Muslim, the Kazakhstan Muslim. The Hanafi Muslim, the Hanbali Muslim, the Maliki Muslim. (Wait, what on earth is going on here?! So not all Muslims are Arabs?)

And when I say talk, I mean ask a question, expect an answer, digest the answer, and hope that the answer can answer some of your questions. I don’t mean yelling. I don’t mean attacking Muslims for loving Muhammad, peace be upon him. When one loves Muhammad, we mean like loving your father. Your grandfather. Your best friend. Your teacher. That one person who did everything for you, with no expectation of reward. That is who Muhammad is to me, and I freely choose to love the Prophet Muhammad because I’m convinced he is the best human being ever to have graced the earth. Yet, so was Moses, according to some. So was Jesus, according to others. So was Gandhi, if you ask one of my friends. So why is Islam a “cult” around Muhammad?

My best advice would be to learn before you speak, and to understand before you seek to educate. That is what Islam has taught me, and I hope it is what Islam could teach your children.

Most Sincerely,

A concerned citizen