Thawrat ash-Sha'ab

Having now seen the movie I have mixed feelings about it. The production values were amazing and the poems which were quoted to emphasize the atmosphere were quite moving. In particular, the poem about the weeping mihrab almost made me weep for what we have lost as a community. I do, however, take issue with the depiction of Ibn Hazm (although it brought a smile to my face to see them focus on him), especially making him out to be an anti-semite. In addition, it really fails to do justice to the Muwahhidun (AKA ‘Almohads’) and the changes they enacted. I also find the attention paid to Jewish figures to be rather excessive; if one were not familiar with the intellectual history of the period one would come away thinking that Jews did most of the intellectual work in Al-Andalus which is not the case. It also ignored the fact that MANY groups of people were persecuted for ‘spreading’ the Black Death, including lepers. Jews were not the only target.

I came away with the impression that the producers were trying to portray Muslims who are tolerant to the point of laxity (i.e. compromising on clear ahkam of the shar’iah such as those prohibiting alcohol) as ‘enlightened’ and those who were trying to construct a community based on the sunnah (including a lifestyle which is in accordance with the sunnah) as ‘backwards.’ The ‘enlightened’ rulers could be extremely capricious but this was not depicted at all. In contrast everything distasteful to modern western sentiments which the Muwahhidun are supposed to have done is not only described but acted out in detail. I see a definite bias in that and it makes me wonder if there is some kind of agenda that the producers are persuing. Where does the funding for this organization come from, if I may ask?

And to all of my sisters who are resisting the oppressor.

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You are more than the garments they rip from you,

more than the bodies they violate;

You are the bent rib,

the strongest bridge to transcendence.

You are the coolness of the eye to your parents,

the first and closest adviser to your brothers,

and the path to Jannah for your sons.

By the mercy Allah has put into your heart

the Ummah has been built

word by word,

brick by brick,

person by person.

And how have we repaid you?

With cowardice and treason.

We stand idle when

animals that walk like men

come for you,

shedding crocodile tears

when the cameras are rolling

but refusing to touch you

if you return.

And how often is your trust in us betrayed?

Betrayed by fists and feet,

by wandering eyes,

by a poisonous tongue…

Instead of your protectors

we’ve become your jailors,

covering up the light

that Allah gave you,

transforming a healing grace

into a private entertainment.

So I tell you revolt!

Revolt against domesticity!

Revolt against atrophy

of your mind, body, and soul!

Take up un-lady like habits,

speak up and speak out,

and learn to defend yourselves.

Be like Ayesha (RA) and lead and army!

Be like Zaynab (RA) and speak truth to a tyrant!

Be scholars, artists, martyrs!

And when you are these things,

forgive us and let us stand beside you.

Happy Juneteenth!  In commemoration here are two great Afrikan scholars: John Henrik Clarke and Sulayman Nyang.

With the coming of the mass surveilance society, Big Brother no longer needs to watch you; we all watch each other.  We are Big Brother.  We follow each other around on-line, on messaging services, networking sites, blogs, and forums.  We videotape, photograph, and record each other at home, at work, and on the street.  We text, Bluetooth, and call each other; we confuse telepresence with genuine, human interaction.  We have software to track what music we listen to, what books we read, and what movies we watch so that we don’t have to take the time to get to know each other; it’s all delivered to our Inbox on an html encoded, glowing platter. We can zoom in on each other’s homes via satellite and we can scope out street corners via the internet; eavesdropping devices are routinely and unashamedly advertised on television.  The omnipresent surveilance leads to internal repression; one must be careful what one says or does lest it end up on Youtube.

 The solution is two-fold: disconnecting from the electronic umbilical cord and developing an indifference to the all-present electronic eye.  We must learn to cultivate the arts of conversation and body language; the well-turned phrase and the subtle gesture capture realities that our lost when digitized and scattered on the Web.  We must regain an appreciation for the physical substance of a book, for the smoothness of the pages and the heft of its weight.  Music must be something that is created, not consumed; we must learn to feel the vibrations of the instrument in our hands.  In short, we must wake up from our electronic dreamland and return to reality.  In the meantime we must not be burdened with an excess of self-consciousness.  If the medium cannot deliver authenticity to our self-appointed audience, we must still be authentic in performance, in being.  We must write, speak, think, create as if there were no audience.  The internal repression forced upon us by the surveilance society is a reflection of the fear we have of the contents of our own souls.  If we come to know ourselves and dissolve this fear, we will no longer be controlled by the threat of exposure.  We will have regained a measure of autonomy in a time of subjugation.

Abu Mazen has the seal of approval of the West and Israel.  Is there anything else that needs to be said?

You may have recieved information about this curious endeavor in your e-mail recently.  Look here for more information about the nature of these people.