Closing Pandora's Box

O ye who believe! be strict in observing justice, and be witnesses for Allah, even though it be against yourselves or against parents and kindred. Whether he be rich or poor, Allah is more regardful of them both than you are. Therefore follow not low desires so that you may be able to act equitably. And if you conceal the truth or evade it, then remember that Allah is well aware of what you do.¹

O ye who believe! be steadfast in the cause of Allah, bearing witness in equity; and let not a people’s enmity incite you to act otherwise than with justice. Be always just, that is nearer to righteousness. And fear Allah. Surely, Allah is aware of what you do.²

In my 6^th form class there were 10 boys (including me). We had quite a weird bunch of guys.

• One was gay. He was an excellent singer. We made fun of him.
• One was extremely homophobic, spoke like a robot and loved America more than anything. We made more fun of him.
• One was a diehard Chelsea fan and came to school drunk on many occasions. We had a lot of banter with him, because he was a little mentally challenged loud mouthed.
• One was called Eid. His ability to change his tone from ghettoese to well spoken, grammatically correct English was quite startling. But with a name like Eid, how could you make fun of him?
• Two were Manchester United fans (like me), hard working (not like me), good guys (I was a bit of a *insert appropriate word here* back in the days).
• One was an Arsenal fan. Dynamite comes in small packages. He was small. Every Monday I’d happily remind him, “For the last however many seasons, the only silverware Arsenal have seen has been the studs on their boots.”
• One had the most ostentatious hair ever and would be seen each morning during registration drinking a can of relentless with a carrot cake.
• And then there was me.

Our form got along well with each other (apart from American kid). We played hilarious pranks on one another, like on valentines the gay guy gave the homophobic guy a rose. We shared a lot of friendly banter (mainly about football) and also a lot of homework (usually chemistry).

I was good friends with most of my form, especially the gay guy. We used to sit next to each other in Biology class, had long discussions (mainly me making fun of him) and he even nearly tricked me into seeing a BMW once (not the car). There was another Muslim guy in my maths class who hated the gay guy. “F***ing f*g,” he would say. “Look at that poofter. Stay away from me!” Once I was discussing this with the gay guy and I told him, “Though I do not think homosexuality is right, I also do not think it is right to discriminate against any person.”

But this post isn’t about the gay guy or any of the guys mentioned above.

*****

I was standing in the queue at the post office. In front of me were two hijabi girls, who had just come out of school. They had been talking about all sorts of stuff; boys, one’s boyfriend, Lady Gaga’s new song and then one of them said:

Girl 1: I heard this siiiiiccccck joke this morning.
Girl 2: What?
Girl 1: Why do Jews have such big noses?
Girl 2: Errrrm I dunno.
Girl 1: ‘Coz the airs free init.
Girl 2: I don’t get it.
Girl 1: Ah don’t worry about it, I got another one. How do you get 6 million Jews into a car?
Girl 2: Errrrm dunno.
Girl 1: *with a smug I am so clever look on her face* Stick ‘em all in the ashtray.

If looks could kill, she’d have been a gonner if her eyes happened to have crossed mine.

*****

When I wrote my 3-part thoughts on hate (1,2,3) I got an email from someone who wasn’t too happy with the points I made. “You don’t understand Islam at all,” The person said. “You’re a Jew lover.” Followed by a lot more things that are not appropriate to mention here. Am I really?

Fear of the unknown makes people do irrational things, say irrational things and believe irrational things. I already wrote a whole post on that in part 3 of the series on hate, but I wanted to revisit the topic. A significant proportion of Muslim youth (and adults) have this notion in their head that all Jews and Christians are worthy of Allah’s wrath. They seem to think they’re doing Allah a favour by spreading the hate. Some even go as far as usurping the rights of anyone that is not a Muslim. I’d like to ask them why?

“They’re killing our innocent brothers and sisters in Palestine,” they say.
“Who?”
”The Jews.”

Let us analyse that. That reply seems to insinuate that all Jews are responsible for the conflict happening between Israel and Palestine. If that was the case, what were those Jews doing marching in London among the pro-Palestinian protestors in the wake of the Gaza bombings (2009)? If all Jews are bad, then I guess following the same logic all Muslims too should be terrorists after what happened on 9/11 in America, 7/7 in London and with that young man (Abdul Farouk Abdulmtallab) trying to blow up his balls on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Let’s be just, and use the same measuring stick. If due to the action of a few Jews the whole of the Jewish community is labelled as being bad, then why not the same for the Muslims, and the Christians and the Hindus etc.?

If Jews are so bad, then why did the Holy Prophet Muhammad^(saw) marry one [Refer to Sister Sara’s comment below] why does the Holy Qur’an allow Muslims to marry them? The Holy Prophet Muhammad^(saw) married a recently converted Jew. And when the other wives of the Prophet taunted her or behaved harshly towards her she did not respond. Once Hadhrat Aisha^(ra) and Hadhrat Hafsa^(ra) called her a ‘Jew’ but she remained quiet. On the arrival of the Holy Prophet^(saw), she mentioned these happenings. He replied, “If they claim to be from the family of the Prophet then why didn’t you say that I am far superior because I am daughter of Haroon^(as) (Aaron), niece of Musa^(as) (Moses) and the wife of Muhammad?”. This wondrous woman I refer to is none other than Hadhrat Safia^(ra).

The Holy Qur’an talks of the Khaira-Ummah in the following words:

You are the best people raised for the good of mankind; you enjoin what is good and forbid evil and believe Allah…³

Let us not transgress the rights of justice (refer to translation at the top of the article) owed to one another for that is a commandment given to us by our Lord. I have been brought up being taught respect for others, their beliefs and their way of doing things. Just because it’s different doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.

I was looking for a wallpaper of a Mosque to put onto my PC at home. Scrolling through pages and pages of pictures on Google images I came across the following picture. It looked beautiful:

That is to say, until I clicked on it and read the text on the right hand side. Bad people are found in every group, every religion, every society and every culture. I’d like to see you prove me wrong.

Come to think of it, once you remove the layers of labels everyone is surrounded by, we’re all essentially the same at the core. Whether we belong to different religions, different sexualities, different races, different sets of football fans, deep down inside, we all feel the same pain, the same hurt, the same happiness, the same fear etc. After all, we are all human and that is where it matters. Forget the labels and see the people who reside behind them.

Or maybe I’m just wrong, and just too nice. Maybe hate is the way forward (despite the lessons history teaches us contrary to that belief).

________________________________

Picture 1, showing mosque wallpaper taken from here
¹Holy Qur’an - Al-Nisa' Chapter 4 : Verse 136
²Holy Qur’an - Al-Ma'idah Chapter 5 : Verse 9
³Holy Qur’an - Aal-e-`Imran Chapter 3 : Verse 111

Last week I watched 3 excellent films; all of which I had seen multiple times before but thought I’d relive their awesomeness. On Tuesday I watched Mississippi Burning, on Wednesday it was American History X and on Thursday I watched Schindler's list with a friend.

(Click on the thumbnails to see the trailer for the movie)

On Tuesday last week I also turned on the radio after months. I was bored of waiting for the boiler man to come (they have such flexible appointment times). It wasn’t music I was after as I had already blasted my ears enough that day. I tuned into London’s Biggest Conversation (LBC) which is a discussion station regarding everything and nothing, ranging from why insects go round in circles around light bulbs to whether getting shat on by a bird is actually good luck. That particular day the topic of discussion was how to stop terrorism in the light of the admission by the Home Sectary, Theresa May, that the prevent program aimed at curbing radicalisation among young persons is not working as well as it could be. The presenter asked a member of the anti-terror think tank whether all types of extremism had a religious founding. The reply was:

No, I don’t think so. We all need justification for our actions and beliefs. Some people find it in religion, some people in anti-Islamism and some people find it in racism. Take for example the EDL, BNP, IRA, organisations that base their extremist ideas on politics.

Earlier this year, the following article appeared in the news:

On my first day of university (6^th October 2008 – yeah I remember it very well) I was feeling the standard emotions that one feels in such a big place surrounded by hundreds of new faces; the anxiety with a tinge of fear, but most of all the excitement. I remember sitting on the floor in the large lecture theatre listening to the various introductory welcome speeches because all the seats were full. I remember the first place we went after that was down into the depths of the medical school into the Dissection Room (DR). There was no rancid smell of decomposing dead bodies but instead the strong potent odour of formaldehyde (used to preserve the cadavers) penetrated one’s nostrils and caused itching of some people’s eyes. The room was brightly lit and one would not have assumed this was a room full of death. There were 18 metal tables arranged in 2 rows, each containing something covered by a green plastic. A skinless hand was hanging down out of the green plastic on one of the tables and I guessed then what we were just about to witness. As we entered the room, we were assigned a table by which to wait until everyone was assembled. After a short wait, a voice rang out from the speakers. “Hello and welcome to the Dissection Room. You should all have a demonstrator who will give you an introduction to the work done down here, safety precautions and the rules of the DR.” The green plastic was lifted up, the soaking towels were removed and there it was lying before us. A few people gasped, another person fainted and fell. A skinless dead face with an eye ball missing stared up at us.

At the end of the DR session I was washing my hands, trying to get rid of all the dead body juice when someone walked into me. After the apologies, and introductions, it transpired he was from Pakistan, having come to the UK only a few years ago. We got talking, went for lunch together (it was chicken at Amal’s) and that’s when we started talking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This initiated a heated discussion on terrorism during which I made a side comment about the idiots who go round blowing themselves up and taking the lives of countless innocent civilians. It was then that I realised the guy I was talking to was ‘pro’ all the things I was anti; suicide bombing, indiscriminate killings and sacrificing one’s life and dragging down a dozen other people with you. Oh and he was a right pervert, with a mind that rotated around sex. Not just natural sex either (don’t even bother asking).

Having watched American History X, and looking back on the events of that day I’ve come to realise a few things. Extremist ‘recruiters’ play with your emotions. They make you feel angry, hurt, cheated on, uncared for and then exploit those feelings. In the film, Derek’s (played by Edward Norton) mentality transforms into that of a racist after his father tells him how ‘affirmative black action’ means that jobs are being given to black people not because they are the best at something, but to fill numbers. He quotes an example from his work where a black man was given a job for which a white man had better qualifications. He put forward his point in a subtle manner but it had a lasting effect on young Derek’s mind. When the father, a fireman, was killed, Derek blamed all the country’s problems on immigrants; ‘blacks, browns, yellow whatever.’ In response to the reporter asking what this has to do with anything, Derek replies, ‘Because my father was murdered doing his job!Putting out a fire in a fucking nigger neighbourhood he shouldn’t be giving a shit about. He got shot by a fucking drug dealer who probably collects a welfare check!’ In the same way, that guy I met on the first day of university tried to rouse my anger at America and Britain by twisting his words so that the killing of Muslims looked as if it was the killing of my own family. Organisations such as the BNP use issues like immigration and spread false information about certain peoples to rouse the emotions of the native population, who, as a result of which feel under threat. Once the seed of hate is sown, the tree flourishes and grows strong very quickly.

*****

But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And if you hatin’ you’re bound to get irate
Yeah madness is what you demonstrate
And that’s exactly how anger works and operates
You gotta have love to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love y’all.
(Where is the love – Black Eyed Peas)

- END OF PART 1 -

To be continued (Click here to read part 2)…