Muslim Convert

So I was thinking today in the shower, it tends to be where I do a lot of my thinking. I have always shied away from the term revert. The are a group of people that says since we were born Muslim those of us who were not born into Muslim families but choose Islam as our faith are reverts not converts. I have never been able to put in to words my dislike of the word revert or why I have this weird distaste for being called a revert. I mean, I'm the person who has a hard time raising their hand if someone asked if there are any reverts in the room, but I would have my hand higher then anyone else if you asked for a show of converts. So, it hit me this morning, the term revert feels like I'm blaming my parents for me not being a born Muslim. That just feels wrong on so many levels to me. It is not like my parents rejected Islam, they grew up in a different time then me. They didn't have youtube to watch videos on, they didn't have google to do comparative religious searches on. I was raised Seventh Day Adventist and I plan on seeing many of the people I went to church with growing up in heaven, inshaAllah if I get there. I don't even really consider myself a convert about half the time. I have all the same beliefs that my church gave me, not to say I have all the beliefs that are stated by the Adventist church, because I don't, but the ones that make me a better Muslim are not new. I always had faith in God, I always believed that faith came from within, and I always asked God before I made big decisions. Islam has just given me a better way to live what it is that I have always believed. I am a Christian in that I follow the teaching of Jesus as I believe he meant them, I am a Jew in that I follow the laws of the Torah as I believe they were meant, but I identify as a Muslim because I want to submit myself to the will of Allah, God, Elohim. Also because Muhammad was a prophet, without him we don't have a prophet that spoke to the whole world, I mean if we don't listen to him we have to do a lot of guesswork to extrapolate messages for certain peoples to the whole world, Muhammad takes the guesswork out and I like certainty. So back to the not blaming my parents bit. They were the ones who raised me not only to believe but to question my belief, they raised me to view new people not as scary and to be pushed away, but something interesting to learned about and from. If I had not been raised by my parents I would be the person I am now, I don't think I would be Muslim. My mom once told me that she looked at all the churches around in order to pick one that she wanted to raise my brother and I in and that she thinks she would have considered Islam very hard if there had been a Mosque around. Well there wasn't so I was raised SDA. I think it is interesting to note that my brother and I are both now things that are not SDA but we also both respect the teachings that the fondation that our church gave us. I know I rambled a bit here but it all comes down to the fact that I a proud of the way my parents raised me given the choices that they had and I am proud that I CHOOSE to be a Muslim. I have not regressed to some pre-birth state, I used the brain Allah gave me, and my parents fostered, and I Converted to Islam.

What do you say?

Yesterday I was asked a question that took me completely by surprise.

"Why in all the time I have known you have you never asked what I know about your faith?"

I didn't know how to respond. I asked "Have you ever asked me what I know about your faith?"

"No, but Methodist aren't under attack."

This is what it has come to the responsibility for the people gaining knowledge is now being placed on Muslims. No longer are people expected to educate themselves before they speak and make assumptions. Muslims are now supposed to throw ourselves under the bus of public dislike, we are supposed to engage people who have no desire to be educated so that we do not lose our rights as United States citizens?

It is becoming the theme all over the United States from capital hill to classrooms.

Muslim live in a constant state of unease about the media. When any fool does something violently stupid the first thought that comes in my head "Please don't let it be a Muslim".

Why has it gotten to that point? Some fool flies a plane into an IRS office and no group gets blamed and beyond that you can still say "I hate the IRS" and no one is going to think you plan to fly a plane into anything. Can you imagine that reaction if a Muslim said anything against the government when they were in company that didn't know them?

I choose to be Muslim because I love Allah, my family, science, animals, feminism and environmentalism. Only in Islam did I find all of those things in one place. But somehow my faith has been perverted so that people think I am oppressed by my husband, don't care about my family because they are not Muslim, hate dogs and pigs, and can't possibly have a sound scientific mind.

When is England only oldest sons got to inherit, Islam had long had laws by which women inherited a fair portion of their parents wealth and got to keep that which was theirs when they got married. In Islam paradise is said to lay under the feet of your mother. Prophet Mohammad (SAW) was once ask who should I listen to after Allah and his prophet and he said "Your mother" "Who next?" "Your mother" "Who next?" "Your mother" "Who next?" "Your father".

Henry the Eight disposed of many wives in the search for a son. In Islam a man is still responsible for the care of a wife he divorces till she remarries, or if she can't have children and her husband loves her but wants children he may choose to marry a second wife providing he can afford to equal homes and any children he may have. Tell me which a women would prefer, to be beheaded, imprisoned or left destitute OR to live a comfortable well cared for life in which she only has to deal with her husband part of the time?

I have more to say on all this but I have to go to work and it is the middle of finals study time.

Just some food for thought.

When the husbands away the wife will play.....with HIJABS!

So I begin this entry I am very sad that I can't think of cleaver ways to describe things. I think it is good that I never had indulged my secret desire to be a real writer. I like food a lot and I'm not sure I would eat much of it if I was writing. I welcome votes on which one you like.

I love brown and teal and weather cold enough for hijab layers!

I think this is the hijab I will wear if I ever run for office or just when I want to represent.

The Messy Bun

This one is more pink/burgundy in real life

For my minty days

My inner flower child is coming out

I have nothing to say about my face or what I'm wearing here

For the days I need to befriend lizards

I hope you have enjoyed the waste of an hour and a half of time when I should have either been sleeping of studying..... :)

When the Past Makes You Love the Future

So last night I met a person who I wanted to love right away.
Let me start by saying I have a pretty constant desire to go back to the Oreo House, it was a place the everyone was just what they wanted to be and were valued as such. It was my home in Undergrad. I lived there for a semester then went abroad and then moved into a different apartment. It didn't work out, that other apartment, but the Oreo House was still so much my home that everyone in the house was ok with me moving into one of the nooks in the house. That's right, I lived in a nook and felt gloriously at home. When I decided that I needed to move back into The House I emailed Elizabeth, our default house mom, to ask if it might be ok for me to live in the nook. She replied "I'll have to check with everyone, but I'm sure it will be fine, this has always been your house too". Elizabeth was always freakishly organized, constantly considering other people, and might have seemed aloof to those who didn't know her.
Elizabeth is the reason I want to love the girl I met last night.
I was at a meeting where we were planning what Ohio State could do to help the victims of the floods in Pakistan. The girl who was keeping us on track and organized was a tall dark haired girl who is super involved with everything in the med school, well at least the things that could help other people. She lived in Honduras for a while, she's Catholic, and she not afraid to yell at people when they get off track. Anyone who knows Elizabeth will know that this girl is leading kind of a parallel life to Elizabeth, and it makes her just the kind of person I want to have around me.
I'm not sure I will ever be friends with her, I think I came across a little bit like a teenager at a rock concert. I made it a little too clear I was a fan I think. Oh well, what happens will happen, and I will be happy if all I get to do is work on a project with such a cool person.

One is Too Many

Why is it ok to kill people as a country when it is not ok to kill people within our country? Police officers have to file a report and explain every time that they discharge thier guns. Why don't out soilders have to do that? If they are always doing the right thing as the media would have us believe why would it be wrong to have them explain. The world has become this crazy place of us and them. As people meet more people they just find new people to hate. But most people love those around them. That means that most people are lovable. When will we learn to look to love new people. I feel like I spend all my time trying to unteach people, to help them see that muslims are real people. It is very strange to find so many people that want to dislike me, or if not me they want to dislike people I love, as if me being an ok person is a fluke and they would have to meet every muslim in the world before they would admit that most of them are good. And this is the part that gets to me, if you are a happy women with a loving husband, he must be a moderate muslim. NO The stronger my husbands faith is at any point in time, the better he treats me, the more loving he is to me, and because my husband has faith I never fear that he will leave me, I never fear that he will cheat on me. I am at complete peace in my marriage because of my husbands faith, and if he were to become too "moderate" then I would start to fear.
I'm so tired of hate and misunderstanding, I just want to fill the world with love. I just want to make a place that is so full of love and friends that even if times get hard the love will make those times great.

Ode to spoiling milk and Z

Z, I always doubted that oatmeal would taste good when made with milk despite your boyscout stories. But as my milk is set to spoil at anytime and I am out of bread, which prevents me from my standard breakfast of toast, I decided to give it a try today. It is good, I shall never doubt your boyscout skills again.

Hijab trials

So of late I have been feeling a little bit restricted by my hijab. I don't think it is really a reflection on my hijab but more of a general reflection of my frustration with Columbus life. Anyway I decided that I would try to combat my feelings by enjoying my scarfs and trying out some new things. I'm not sure that this was entirely a success, either in style of feeling but I thought I would share my meager efforts via blog.
I think that this could work but I think the top scarf would have to be lighter weight so that the braid was not so big.
I like this but I need a white under scarf I think.
Simple, girly.

I'm not sure what to say about these. Feel free to comment or send me new scarfs with which to play. :)