Brain Farts

The first was written in a fit of pique at my parents (don't ask why... it was about something silly and petty), the second late at night when random thoughts were roaming around in my head, and, having a notebook and pen with me, I scribbled it down just for fun.

Neither of them are particularly good - indeed, the first is almost embarassing - but I find it rather amusing, and I hope they'll make you smile, too. Enjoy!


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16 year old ----- is sick and tired of her life: the strict rules and restrictions, the isolation her parents have forced upon her, their stifling of her grand ambitions, their narrow-mindedness and strict, traditional interpretation of Islam which made her childhood a misery, and the sudden move to a new city, which cruelly yanked her away from her few friends.
So she runs away.

Ten years later, her parents open the door to find their daughter on their doorstep - veiled head-to-toe in black and lugging a suitcase, husband, and baby behind her.
An hour later, they're still in shock: unveiled, their daughter looks like a cross between a glamorous movie star and a biker chick, the dark sallow and sullen looks of her childhood and adolescence transformed into Gothic beauty, passionate and intense.
She is dressed in leather, her hair streaked with every colour of the rainbow. Her nose and her belly button are pierced, little jeweled dragonflies cheerfully swaying as she moves gracefully, slipping an arm around her handsome Arab husband and shifting her baby son onto her hip; and her dark eyes flash defiantly at her parents, to whom she speaks in a voice that alternates between passionate and rebellious and cool and detached.

It also turns out that she's a qualified Shaykha - recent graduate of one of the greatest Islamic universities in the world - as well as a successful social worker and a promising new persona in the national political arena.
Oh yes, she adds casually, her handsome Arab husband is a Palestinian mujaahid whom she met at university, who had himself studied under numerous great shuyookh and was now a shaykh in his own right.


Identity and Labels: A Parody (Or Something)

Teenage Indo-Canadian Muslimah
Feminist Environmentalist Non-Conformist
Traditionalist Liberal Progressive Conservative
Modern Wahhabi Socialist Jihadi
Tomboy Girly-Girl Soft-Hearted Warrior

---
(I found this little thing I wrote recently... so I decided to throw this one in as well...)

We are a strange breed, we young Muslims of the West. A foot in two worlds - or even three, as the case may be - all familiar, rarely ever fully comfortable.

Even I, Sheikh's daughter that I am, was raised on a diet of both fairy tales and Qur'anic stories. I can remember warm sunny afternoons poring over my favourite book of original fairy tales, illustrated with dark, fantastic, fascinating pictures - Sinbad and the Roc; the Little Mermaid throwing herself over the side of the ship as her prince wedded another woman, one with a voice; the seven dwarves grieving over Snow White's coffin; the Beast, a twisted horrific beast indeed, tenderly nursed by a Beauty who was dressed not in the bright springtime yellow of Disney's animated movie, but in dark robes that swirled with magic.

And at night I fell asleep to my mother's voice as she told me of Jesus and Mary, Moses and the Israelites, Muhammad and his blessed suffering. The Prophets and their missions and their trials and tribulations... tales of wonder and of faith, and sweet dreams swiftly followed.