A Quick Project!

This was a quick knitting project that I have worked in the short rest times between chores.

This should go for one of my nieces, depends on whom it fits better (oooh, I am still not that good in guessing the sizes and working pieces that fit)

Yummy Dates Cake... A Recipe!

I tasted it on Thursday, it was made by my sister. And it was amazing!

I have been thinking of finding a dates cake recipe but I always keep it as a postponed project. But tasting this one encouraged me to make it, and it was amazing!

Ingredients:

1 cup of all purpose flour

1/4 tea spoon of baking powder

A sprint of salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, soft (at room temperature)

1 cup of brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 tea spoons Vanilla extract

250 grams dates (seeds removed)

1 cup of water

1 tea spoon of baking soda

To make it:

In a cooking pot, add the dates, the water cup and the baking soda and bring to a boil. Keep stirring until the dates are soft and the mixture is consistent.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer) beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add in the eggs and the vanilla extract and beat until incorporated. Add in the flour, the baking powder and the salt, and beat until the mixture is consistent and smooth.

Spray a baking pan with non-stick baking spray, and pour in the batter. Bake in a pre-heated oven (at 180 C) for half an hour, or until the edges are browned and a tooth pick comes out clean when inserted in the middle of the cake.

Bonn Appetite :-)

My Latest Crochet Project

I was recently done with my latest crochet project. Ideally, and if I had abundant time at my hands, this shouldn't have taken me more than a day.

But due to being constantly either busy, busy-minded or exhausted, it took me about a month!

Oh, and the quality of the work shocked me when I compared it to my previous work!

In any way, I have worked the below cardigan for my little niece, Maria :-) who is doing so fine so far, alhamdulellah...

The Little Engineer...

The day before yesterday, after we went home, electricity went out. It seems that the load was high, and the circuit breaker for our house could not handle it. It took my husband about an hour until he was able to figure out what was the problem and fix it. During that time, I and baby Leo spent our time in the living room, using the light of a battery-operated chamber light :-D Oh, and baby Leo loved it very much... the light made him VERY curious, and after the electricity was back, he insisted to keep playing with it, moving it from hand to hand and exploring it closely!

And yesterday, I gave him crayons and a sketch book for the first time! Now at the beginning, the ideas was to bury the crayons under the couches and let mommy play treasure hunt LoL

But then, and after I kept drawing things in front of him, he started watching the way I touch the white paper with the crayons to make lines, and the colorful lines and forms started to catch his attention! In no time he was grabbing crayons and passing them over the paper, some times touching it and some times failing to, but eventually he came up with a masterpiece! LoL

The closely adjacent colorful lines and the two donuts are my contribution. The left half of the painting is baby Leo's art! :-D

And then after he went to sleep I thought to myself: well, mechanics interest my son, he likes to explore things closely and dismantle them whenever he can... And now he is starting to use the pencil and paper... hmmmm... I can imagine him making industrial sketches and schematics! 

It is interesting to try to guess what your child's interests will be in the future! :-)

Islamophobia and Radicalism are Brothers?!!...

I have never thought of it this way!

I do believe that people who usually lead provocative propaganda are the ones who make advantage out of the status-quo, but the thought never crystallized in my mind as clear as Theresa Corbin has put it in words!

Read on and enjoy the engagement of mind...

The full post can be found here...

Growing Up!

My little baby is quickly making his way into boyhood!

Last Thursday was his first night in his own room, alone! Until now he has been sleeping in our room. In his own bed which was not placed beside our bed or something, but still, he was with us.

On Thursday, and during the day I was so nervous. I had a feeling that we were letting him down or giving him away! LoL

But then at night, and after he fell asleep and was put in bed, it was so surprising to know that he -actually- slept much better than when he was with us! He slept from 08:00 PM to 08:30 AM next morning, and woke up only once for a brief breastfeeding that took no more than five minutes after which he fell asleep again!

So our baby is now very quickly turning into a little boy :-)

Oh, and seems that those little monkeys have climbing in their blood!

In his room he has a shelves cabinet that looks -ideally!- like this:

Ideally, I said. Right when he wakes up and before he gets out of his crib. Because once he is launched, the two layers are so quickly emptied and do usually look like this:

That, we got used to.

But the new ASTONISHING thing I saw the other day was: it seems that he noticed something in the shelve that is higher than his tiny figure, so he extended his arm and tried hard to reach to what was on the shelve, but without success. Immediately, and as if this was something that he has been doing for YEARS, he put his little foot on the lowest shelf and pushed his body upwards! My little boy was trying to climb the shelves cabinet! (a mixture of happiness, fear and worry!)

That same day, I was sitting on the couch and he was there on the floor, pulling himself to stand, cruising around, walking a couple of steps here and there and crawling (he does not walk solo yet except for three random steps here and there). And while cruising around the living room he reached me. He left his leg on the couch and started pushing himself up, and before I knew it he was reaching into my lap and putting himself into my lap while looking me in the eye and smiling! LoL

He is growing up so fast.

And, oh... Yes... We decided to do some thing to keep that cabinet from falling over because it is so clear that our Leo will keep on trying to climb it. Probably we will install a hook in the wall behind it and attach a cable that connects the cabinet to the wall.

It is never the same when you have an active little one around!

Still Alice...

Today I received a birthday gift from one of my friends at the office...

Still Alice!...

I have heard and read alot of positive reviews about the book and now I am very excited to start with it...

Once I am done with the rest of "to-read" books! :-)

Lucy Maud Montgomry!

And google is celebrating the 141st birthday of L. M. Montgomry! :-)

And Anne of the Green Gables is all around Google...

And I am so happy :-D

So Sweet!

Ok, I confessed this before...

But I have to do it over and over...

Being a mother messes with one's emotions A BIG TIME!

Today, my eyes were tearing when I watched this brave little boy singing the Australian National Antheme:

He was amazing! I bet that his mother was standing in the stadium and clapping her hands out with teary eyes...

God bless the little boy <3I truly wanted to hug him...

I want to see my little boy like him one day...

Sweetly, humbly and quietly self-confident :-)

Keeping Warm...

It is a great feeling to know that your baby is sleeping warm because of something that you have made with your own hands... <3

On Knowing People That We Do Not Really Know...

I have followed the blog of Zahraa, Umm Ahmad, for some time.

Zahraa is a mother of two cute little children: a boy, Ahmad, and a girl, Hamida.

Her good heart, her genuine smile and her beautiful nature are not something that one can ignore. She is, also, the same age as my youngest sister, so I can relate :-)

Zahraa disappeared for some time. Then she came back with the news that her boy, Ahmad, was diagnosed with diabetes. This was more than four months ago. She then disappeared again.

Since that day, and specially that I now have a baby boy, I became very concerned for her. Today I went over her older posts and looked at how her little boy grew up. I was able to see glimpses of my little boy in them. And as much as I hate to see anything bad happening to my own son, I also am so worried about anything bad happening to hers.

I am not sure if she is following her blog any more, which is -by the way- a blog for ladies only. I do not know if she will ever see this.

But I am asking you all (AAAAALLLLLLL you, millions of readers!) to keep her and her beautiful family in your prayers. May Allah keep her, her husband, sweet little Ahmad and Hamida, healthy and happy. Ameen.

Paris...

And again, Paris was attacked. This time, the death toll is outstanding.

The reactions varied. The international media is showing alot of compassion. Worldwide sites are being let with the colors of the French flag. People around the world have given different reactions: from seeing the international media as biased, and trying their best to justify the attacks, to the other extreme of considering the casualties of France as the only casualties that deserve compassion and give a blind eye to all of the death and suffering in other areas around the world (famine casualties are deaths, as well, and they are dying because of the negligence of the whole world!)...

And as usual, I watch for some time in silence. I peek through my little facebook window (my account that has ONLY my close family and close friends) to watch what people say about this.

And my analysis for what is happening led me to a conclusion: we, in the middle east, feed on hatred. In a way that makes any sympathy with what might be marked as "other" to be considered as treachery! 

Take out bias from what happened in Paris, take out any indications to religions or origins, and try to describe it: several people have attacked and killed a group of people that they do not know, the choice being made on the basis of the victims being present in that specific place when the attackers decided to shoot. Most probably, the attackers has never met any of the victims in their lives and they do not know a bit about them.

Is there any way in which this can be justified? NO!

Now when we put the origins of the people and their religions back in, the image darkens even more.

Reactions in the middle east varied between:

- Showing exaggerated sympathy as a way of marketing one's self to the "west", most probably to Embassies of Western countries, these are the people who are potential refugees or immigrants, or have some sort of interest in mind, like obtaining work or study visas

- Underestimating what happened under the pretext that these casualties are not more precious than the innocent victims being killed every day in Syria and Iraq and Palestine (because, you know, before you sympathize with any terrorist attack around the world you need to swear and pledge allegiance to Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Myanmar... etc)

- Trying to bring back to the scene what the French colonialism has committed in North Africa as a way to deter people from showing any sympathy with the attacks and marking sympathizers are people with less loyalty to their ARAB Muslim identity.

What, people?

Isn't human blood precious enough? Aren't human souls of any worth? Or we should pass our compassion through our identity filters and just feel sympathy with whoever we mark as (us) and refrain from doing so for any one we see as (other)?

We have a tendency to concentrate on the ideology of (identity). We have a strong feeling of being (us). We are extremely indulged in producing labels to categorize people: Muslims, Christians, Jews... Sunni, Shea... Hanafi, Shafe'i, Maleki, Hanbali... Jordanian, Syrian, Iraqi, Egyptian... Arab, African, Circassian, Chechen... Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern... Islamist, Marxist, Liberal... And in order for one to open up for another, they should be identical in AAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL of these layers... any slightest difference in any of these layers can be a time bomb that might explode at any time!

What is happening in our countries is a direct result of the hatred that we are keen to feed and raise inside us. I know... external parties who have interests in our region have a role in the chaos flaming around the middle east, this is not some thing that I can deny. But if some one is standing on the edge of a cliff and is preparing himself to commit suicide, and another one comes and just gives him the tiny push off the cliff, do not we still consider the person responsible for his own death to a far extent?

Also, we have created an unbelievable case of confusion for the whole world. In the beginning of the civil war in Syria, for example, no one interfered (at least on the official level). The Arab masses condemned the silence of the international community and asked them to stop the war in Syria. When the international community made a move, the Arab masses justified the attacks on France by the fact that it interfered in Syria.

COME ON, PEOPLE!

WHAT EXACTLY DO WE WANT?

Do we want to be left alone until we settle our own internal affairs (and most probably, finish each other, eventually)?

Or we want the international community (AKA the infidel West) to interfere and solve our problems for us (and most probably so that we can retaliate by waging attacks against their civilians)?

Or we want the international community (again, AKA the infidel West) to counsel each and every one of us on what we want in order to satisfy every single Arab and grant us peace on our social media timelines?

PLEASE!

Let us get rid of all of that segregates us. We are all humans. Let the governments deal with governments, and let us, people, deal with people. Napoleon Bonaparte is long dead. And the people in France today are NOT the colonial powers that have once invaded North Africa. These are human beings like us, who want to work and make a living, and be able to go home at the end of the day and take care of their families.

I am qouting Debbie Qalballah here, as she has put it in words in exactly the way it has to be put:

"And that’s the reason I wrote this. Never stop being a hero. In a world that benefits from our hatred, never fall into hate. Refuse to be polarised. Never think of another human as the “Other”. Realise patriotism cannot hidden behind if your government acts unjustly. Stand up for truth. Demand justice for all people. Commit yourself to democracy. Put reason above fear. Realise that ordinary people everywhere are frightened and that we have more in common than we don’t. Remember who the real enemy is: it is greed. Never stop being an ordinary, everyday, marvelous, run-of-the-mill, salt-of-the-earth, trail-blazing, superstar of a hero. It will take every single one us standing up for justice everywhere that will make the change."

My Receipes' Treasure!

Humbly, (LoL)... My family and friends believe that I make the best of cakes...

Oh, but they are not all a mere product of my creativity...

There is a magical well where I deg to take the treasures out of...

Please get to know my valuable source!... (and whisper a prayer for me when you taste them ;-) )

On Insuffeciency...

Have you ever come across people who are very good in the heart but are not capable of doing anything right?

I have!

And this girl honestly has challenged my whole system of thought!

I was introduced to her when I re-joined my organization after I left it for a year and a half. I used to run across her in the past at the entrance but it was no more than the casual "Hello... how are you?" "Fine, thanks" with a casual smile. And since the first time I met her I could tell that she is an EXTREMELY polite and well behaved girl. But as I rejoined the organization, this time, she was with me in the same team.

And we happened to be in the W.O.R.S.T. team ever. This team is known all around the organization with its lack of professionalism, their lousy performance, their arrogance, and the belief that they can do whatever they want and that they have the right to make up their own SOPs and that they do not have to comply with the SOPs that apply for others! Oh, and the bullying activity is well and alive there, too.

This girl, was the weakest point in the team. They used to dump all of their rubbish on her! They assigned the worst tasks to her, they always accused her of being slow, they always tracked her tiniest mistakes, they always told her that she was insufficient, they always told her that she was a loser, and they always used a bad tone to talk to her. They used to move her from office to office like a ping pong ball.

I have always sympathized with her. I always supported her. And I always told her that when she was right she had to speak up and defend herself. But then I moved to another department. One of my friends once told me that after she defended her in a situation, she talked to her and told her that she needs to be brave enough and speak out her mind. The next time her senior asked her to do something that she really had to do (and she asked her to do it in a very neutral tone) she exploded in her face and told her that she is in no place to "command her" and that she does not have the right to talk to her this way or ask her to do things and that she will escalate this to management! The senior was shocked! Her senior, of course, told her coldly that she asked her to do something within her TORs, and that her contract forces her to do it. And she told her that if she speaks in this tone again she will inform their manager. In the next team meeting, the manager told every one that they have to comply with their TORs, and that if any one refuses to do they will be reported to the management. My friend was so ashamed and was looking at the floor all the time. every one sneaked looks at her because they knew that she was the one who initiated all of this. This was sure! Because she has made a scene two days ago!

With time, I was able to see how polite, innocent, well intended this girl is. At the beginning I used to think that every one in that infamous team was conspiring against her because she was the weakest point in the team. But time proved otherwise. It was true that she was bullied, but that was not the whole issue.

My new team once came to a point where we needed assistance from other teams. He team sent her to us because they were happy to get rid of her for some time. So she joined us. The job was to take inquiry interviews from refugees. DESPERATE refugees, to be more specific. And she caused a real mess! She always needed to refer back to some one to make sure that she was releasing the correct information to refugees. She always used wrong language. She always sent follow ups full of mistakes, to the extent that our team asked her to never send any follow ups and just hand us any documents by hand and we will take necessary action. She always lacked the skill to handle difficult situation, if a refugee fainted, or cried, or shouted she used to freak out (in a way that was VERY visible to the refugees) and come running asking for help. The simplest situation was a real challenge for her! Finally, our team's senior back then asked her senior nicely to never send her to assist us on inquiry dates because we are not short of staff any more (which was wrong because we kept asking other teams for help). Every one freaked out when she came to help us, but behind her back. No one of our team wanted to hurt her.

Once, she was asked to take some physical case files to the filing room. This has to follow a certain procedure to ensure file integrity. During that procedure, she lost one of the physical files! And this is a HUGE issue for us! She went through a very stressful time, and she then confessed to me that she is convinced that some one has stolen the file and hidden it only to get her in trouble. The poor girl was so bullied to the extent that she saw every thing in the eyes of a bullied!

She once told me sadly that she has applied for positions outside of her team several times but was never taken, and that she believes that her senior was putting obstacles in her way in purpose so that she does not move to another department. The truth is that her senior is waiting for the day in which she leaves the team! But every team leader who has worked with my friend and saw her performance does not want to hire her!

This weak, the software we use was changed from one host to a new host. The new URL was released to the whole organization, and every one started using it. Suddenly we started to notice something weird, a discrepancy in numbers. When people accessed their accounts from the old URL and the new URL, they noticed that the number of tasks assigned to them was different. The IT team checked with every single person who uses the software, and it appeared that every one in the building is working on the new URL except my friend! She continued to work on the old one and caused a problem in the WHOLE building!

And until this very moment, she does not see a single wrong thing about herself or her level of skills. Every time she trips she sees that it is because of an external factor.

This became very annoying to the extent that I started avoiding her. I feel very guilty to do that because the girl is completely unaware of anything going on around her. But at the same time I cannot give a blind eye for her insufficiency to do anything in life!

I seriously thought of confronting her with the truth. But then I freaked out. What will that do except destroying her confidence? Will she be able to correct this? Is it even ethical for me to point out the problem for her and leave her to struggle alone? Can I leave everything about my life and follow her and correct behind her and become her mentor? How can I do when I am BARELY finding time to feed my husband and son and keep them clean? (forget about the house... the priority is keeping it CLEAN, but tidy? Oh!... my least priority!)

Is she my responsibility? The problem is accumulative... Can I correct the mistakes of decades of lack of awareness of her parents?

Ok... In this case I have a chance of avoiding the whole situation... but what to do if I HAD TO deal with her? What if I was her senior? What if she was in my team?

And the scariest question: shall I ever see one of my children like her?

Happy Birthday, Baby Leo!

Ok...

So in the midst of all of the incidents in our family, my son has turned one year old on October 29th, 2015 :-)

So good bye baby Leo, and welcome toddler Leo!

We did not actually "celebrate"... I invited my in-laws and my family. I baked a yummy banana cake and made a carrot-cream tart and we bought some other goodies, and the family came in and brought some gifts.

My in-laws have brought one of the most awesome gifts: two birdies :-D and now we officially have pets!

Please meet Almond and Peanut:

My son is fond of birds. And cars. And the gifts for his birthday revolved around these two LoL

The best part is when my son is in one of his night-time breast-feedings and the birdies happen to be awake and in the mood for singing (they wake up at the first signs of dawn, even before the light starts to spread). My son becomes suddenly aware with his eyes wide open and glowing in the dark, he smiles excitedly and starts whispering his excitement murmurs that sound like "hesss... hesss..." and pointing his tiny finger towards the bedroom door :-)

And on a side not, I am -for the first time since very long ago- on diet. Oooooh, yes... I have cut down sugar, carbs and fat. I reached a state where my closet is full of clothes smaller than my current size, but I am stuck with a couple of pieces that fit me now. I need more clothes. And I know for sure that if I buy clothes that fit my current size I will never be back in shape. So enough is enough! I have put aside two pairs of pants that date back to the good old days when we ere engaged, and decided that I will not stop the diet until I am able again of wearing them :-D

That's all for today...

Stay safe! :-)

Oh... My!

I have been away for some time... drowned in a couple of issues.

Life has been tough in the last couple of months. But it has been a good teacher. Two weeks after the accident, my pregnant sister who is two years younger than me delivered a baby girl. A little fighter, to be more correct.

When my sister has advanced one week through her ninth month of pregnancy, her obstetrician told her that the baby's brain has a slightly high amount of fluids. She said it was within the normal range, but on the high border. She asked to see her after a week. The next week, she told her that the baby's head circumference has reached the highest allowed size which means an increase in the fluids, and that she has to be delivered. She gave my sister two days of waiting hoping to have natural delivery started by its own, and asked her to check in to hospital if nothing happened in two days. Two LONG days later, and since nothing happened, my sister checked in to hospital. When the obstetrician checked her and the baby, she said that the head circumference has not increased, which was a good sign. And she decided that my sister's situation needs a c-section. So my sister went under surgery. Once the baby was out we all rushed to the babies' room to check on her: a tiny little pink girl who looks just like her older sister: baby Maria. She looked perfectly normal, mashaAllah. Looking around, crying, moving her arms and legs. When it was time she was bathed (and, oh! She was so annoyed by the nurse touching her and seemed to want only to be left under the flowing warm water! LOL) and she was giving bottle milk, and she was able to suck and drink her milk, alhamdulellah.

The whole family separately asked the pediatrician who checked on her if it was necessary to have a brain MRI, but he assured us all that as long as her head circumference was less than 37 cm (her's was 36 cm) and her reactions are good, there is no need for the MRI. My sister recovered the anesthetics and was sent to her room. Every thing was assuring and good that day.

Next day, I was at work. I called my mom in a cheerful voice to check on my sister and my niece, but my mom's voice was not good. I asked her what was wrong, she started crying and telling me that they did an MRI for Maria and it turns out that she suffered not only from Hydrocephalus, but also she had a hemorrhage that caused damage in more than half of her right hemisphere's brain cells!

I broke down... I was there in the middle of the office's hallway sobbing. My friends took me to my desk and started making calls to doctors they knew to know more about the situation. One of them called a very skillful brain surgeon and explained the situation, and he asked to see her MRIs. I flew to hospital and took the MRIs and went to the doctor. When he saw them he said that the hemorrhage has happened -most probably- during birth due to the difference in pressure. He said she will recover inshaAllah but she needs continuous observation and extreme care. And Maria was welcomed in our family with alot of love and caring.

At two weeks of age, she suddenly became less active, and stopped drinking milk. When she was checked by the doctor, he said that her brain pressure is very high, and that the brain fluids seem to find no exit so they are pressing on the scull. Her head circumference increased by 4 mms in one day!

So the little angel went under surgery. She had a shunt installed from her brain to her stomach to help her brain drain the extra fluids. Her brain pressure decreased right after the shunt was installed. It took her about two days to recover the anesthesia, but now, alhamdulellah, she is back to her normal activity, crying, drinking milk, moving legs and arms, and stopping to listen to voices around.

Maria is now three weeks old. Alhamdulellah, she is fine now. But the difference she made in her parents' house and the whole family is just unbelievable! She taught us ALOT of lessons...

She taught us that some times we plan our lives ahead thinking that our life is something that only WE control, forgetting that there is a God watching over us and having other plans for us...

She taught us that we do not need to be perfect in order to be accepted... in our family alhamdulellah no one ever was admitted to hospital except for baby delivery, and my dad once had a surgery to remove index. Other than that we lived all of our lives healthy, never in financial need, exceptional performance at school, all with higher education, successful in jobs... But this little baby girl taught us that we do not need to be perfect in order to be loved, and that people do not have to look perfect to us in order to love them!

She also taught us to appreciate the graces of God... She taught us to look at the child's ability to talk and thank God for it rather than look at him as annoying... And to look at a child who bumps into stuff unintentionally and breaks them as a healthy child that can move and play... She taught us to love and thank rather than complain...

She has brought out all of the tenderness in our hearts... and now, that little baby girl is just the obsession of the whole family...

We are praying for her every day... Every night when we go to sleep, we pray that tomorrow will carry to us signs that the brain damage has not affected her... And yes, with her, when the day ends, we thank Allah, and sleep not knowing what tomorrow will bring...

That little girl, the little fighter, was Allah's gift for us...

A precious gift that we pray he will keep for us, healthy, and happy...

Married? Engaged? What is My Status?

"Oh, guess who got engaged!"

"Who?"

"My friend Zahraa! Remember her?"

For two ladies from Jordan, the above is understood within a certain context. But if the reader is from Egypt, for example, he or she might have a different understanding.

There is a certain understanding for the process of marriage in the light of the Sharia. This understanding has been carried and colored with traditional colors throughout the Muslim nations, which resulted in some difference when you consider different Muslim nations.

In Sahria: Engagement, or "Khitbah", is a promise of marriage. This happens after the proposer expresses his desire of getting married to a certain lady, and then -after her permission and on behalf of her- her "wali" answers the propose of her approval and promises him to get united with her through marriage, that is, of course, if they got to know each other and got along.

At this stage, and after the "khitbah" is initiated, the proposer can meet with the potential bride and sit with her and get to know her, but she is not yet committed to him through a contract. She cannot be with him alone in complete isolation (khulwah), but, of course, it is ok to sit with him in some privacy, but to an extent that does not allow any thing to go wrong. If they want to go out in the world, some one should accompany them. And -according to alot of scholars- she cannot take off her hijab in front of him, though she can wear a less strict hijab (but still cover all of her body except for the face and hands).

When the bride and groom are ready to be officially committed to one another comes the marriage contract. Here, the two would pronounce the specific wording on the contract in front of a group of people, not less than two witnesses. And they sign the contract. In sharia, at this stage they are officially married. He is hers and she is his. She can go out with him alone, she can be alone with him in isolation, she can take off her hijab in front of him (he is allowed to look at her body and she is allowed to look at his), and they are ready to commence the marriage through the first marital intercourse. There are minor differences between the status of the marriage before and after the first marital intercourse, like for example the "iddah" is not required if a divorce occurred before it, but is required if a divorce occurs after the first marital intercourse. There are several other differences but I think they are sort of minor.

In different societies the word "engagement" or "khitbah" has different meanings. 

Here, in Jordan, for example, what sharia considers as "khitbah" exists as only a couple of brief visits, after which the bride is required to decide if she wants to go on or not. If she says yes, a ceremony of initiating the marriage contract is held, and usually this is what is called "khitbah" in Jordan. The bride and groom would be kept in a liquid status that is between married people and engaged people until the wedding is held. This period of time may extend to a year or couple of years, in which the bride and groom are allowed to do whatever they want except an intercourse (the thing that causes alot of serious problems between the bride and groom on one side, and the bride and her family on another side). After the wedding is held, and the bride and groom go to their house after the wedding party, they have their first marital intercourse.

For us as Circassians, things are alittle bit similar. However, we do have the practice that exists in Sharia under "khitbah", but we call it a Circassian name "psathekhu" which means searching for the soul. In the modern youth's dictionary, this is called having a boyfriend / girlfriend! :-| That's why to alot of people who do not know what we mean by this, think that when our youth have boyfriends/girlfriends they are missing around with the opposite sex and that we -as Circassians- are not conservative people. Although the fact is a boyfriend in our conception is no more that a "Fiance" or "Khateeb" in the Islamic perspective! :-)

So, my dear friend Kanumommy, back to my friend's story...

Her "Fiance" was in fact her husband though a marriage contract, with whom she did not commence her marriage through a marital intercourse. And in order to end that contract they had to go through a divorce or a khula :-)

A Typical Bride Hunt in the ME...

Four months ago, she told me that she got engaged. I asked her how things are going, she said fine. I asked her: are you happy? she -without any enthusiasm- answered: "yes". Do you like him? I asked. With a very quite smile she answered "He is tolerable". At that time, they still had no official marriage contract, only "alfatiha".

A couple of weeks later I met her while I was waiting for my husband to pick me up from work. We had a quick chat until my hubby arrived. I asked her how things are going with her fiance, she said fine. But I saw in her eyes that she was worried. I asked her if there is anything that is really pressing on her mind, she said that it was the normal anxiety of an engaged lady. I told her that she was supposed to be happy, or at least have mixed feelings, but not be fully worried. She admitted that she was concerned because her fiance is some what showing a change from his attitudes at the time of getting to know one another. I told her that we can sit together and have a thorough talk if she wants. She said that she would be grateful if we talked. I said to her: "Inform me whenever you are free". And she left.

I saw her today. I asked her: "How are things going on? When are you planning to have the wedding?"

Her answer was shocking, but at the same time familiar as I am hearing of similar cases alot these days: "We separated. I initiated a Khula'".

In the details, she explained that he and his family are known to be a very good family with a very good reputation and of reasonable financial resources. Before the official contract was signed, she felt that he was doing all what he could to understand her and find a middle ground between him and her, and he made her feel that he wants to overcome any issues between them through mutual understanding. After the contract, he started asking her more about her work, her salary and if she is working under a long term contract or a temporary one, and eventually he informed her that she will have to pay half of her salary for house expenses! For four months, he did not seem to have any future plans. He did not suggest any residence plans, neither did he suggest to rent a house or buy one. No furnishing. No plans for the wedding. Turned out that he was hoping that she will initiate the plan and may be funding it. At the beginning, he started to tell her that he is a man of limited resources, and that he will need her to cooperate with him. But eventually, it turned out that he wanted her and her family to carry the whole burden. When she started nicely objecting on some of his plans that required her to fund stuff (oh, and buy him presents and invite him to restaurants although he never did!) he started becoming rude, and things ended up with him shouting at her, swearing at her, and even threatening her to physically abuse her. When her family tried to be firm with him, he told them that when she becomes in his house, he will show them how he will lock her in the house and never allow her to get out except with a slapped face or a broken leg! Oh, yes... he shouted at her parents and insulted them as well!

And he did not divorce her. No. He hinted that she had to initiate the Khula' so that he does not have to pay anything. She did. She divorced him through Khula' after her uncles threatened him that they know his managers at work (because, oh, the powerful man used to threaten her since he works in intelligence!) and they can get him fired with dishonor! At the sharia court, he took his gold and flew.

I told her that she should made it clear to every one that he was divorced through Khula, and that he did not divorce her.

This is a typical bride hunting story from the middle east!

The Eutopia...

We live in a Muslim country...

Drinking alcohol is prohibited in Islam. And as Muslims, we do not drink Alcohol. A drinker is socially marked as a drunkard. We like to praise our society as one clean of alcohol. We like to attribute the catastrophes that we see in the 'infidel' Western world to their drinking habits.

But!...

The below is a very familiar scene in any empty land. Empty liquor bottles are a very common scene whenever you look at a piece of land that has not been in use for some time...

 

The Chronicles of Death... Respect of the Dead!

At time of the accident, every one was in shock...

Every one was trying to understand what happened, and to get to believe that a whole family has disappeared from this world in a glimpse of an eye..

After the burial, and after the tribal procedures followed to acknowledge what happened between the tribes of the victims and the one who caused the accident... and after the souls came to a relative rest...

We discovered that at the accident location: the two mobile phones of my sister in law and her husband, her husband's wallet, the credit cards, and the husband's work laptop disappeared!

We searched the luggage, and we entered the empty house to look for them, without success. We received text messages that their cell phones -which we tried to call at the day of the accident and found them turned off- are now turned on and available!

Did you get what does this mean?

Oh, yes...

the dead people were robbed!

The Chronicles of Death...

Death never ceases to amaze me. In every thing about it. In the way it comes, the way it skips some people and takes some people, the timing in which it comes, and the way in which it surprises us when we are least expecting it.

And may be mostly, in how we always ignore it and think that it is something that happens to "the people", and we never think that it will come near us. Those horrible catastrophes that we hear about always happen to the other people. We always think that we are spared.

While the truth is that none of us is.

We are all prone to death alike.

On the day of Arafa, we met with death face to face. With no previous preparations. We were at home, I was cooking and baby Leo was wandering in the house in his walker toy. My husband decided that he was going to take a nap since he did a couple of stuff during the hot day hours. Ten minutes after he went to the bedroom and shut the door, I heard him coming to the kitchen. He was confused. He said "May Allah protect us. Seems that something has happened. My cousin just called me telling me that Khaled (my husband's friend and brother in law) passed away" I gasped. My knees were barely holding me. Khaled was supposed to be driving to Aqaba with his wife, my husband's sister, and their little four years old girl. He was standing there staring in his cell phone, trying to think with whom he can talk to know what was the issue. He decided to call Khaled's father. He was in the living room, sitting on the sofa, and he asked Khaled's father: "What, uncle, was what we heard about Khaled true?" And the he listened, his face went grim, and asked with a shaky voice: "The three of them? Even Thia?" and he started crying, and repeating "La hawla wala quwwata illa billah... la hawla wala quwwata illa billah"... My tears started flowing, I was grabbing my face and gasping "Inna lillah wa inna elayhi raje'oun... Inna lillah wa inna elayhi raje'oun"... I hugged him tight and we were both crying uncontrollably... It was a shock... my husband's sister, her husband, and their little girl Thia died in a car accident on the way to Aqaba. They were intending to spend the Eid there. But Allah's wisdom is beyond our understanding, he chose them to spend the Eid in heaven.

They were burried first day of Eid. It always amazes me how the spirits settle down after the burial, subhan Allah. After the funeral, every one fill silent, even Khaled's mother. This woman has a different story.

Khaled, who was my husband's friend and later his brother in law, is the only male son in his family. Other than him they have three daughters. My own mother in law passed away around five years ago after a brave battle with cancer. She won it the first time, but second time Allah subhanahu wa taala chose her to dwell in heaven. So the mother of Sarah, my husband's sister is not alive. After the accident, when the families were required to look at the dead bodies and confirm identities, Khaled's cousin identified him, but stated that his body had clearly seen injuries. So he asked his family not to see him because the scene will hurt them. Khaled's mother swore to God that she will not eat or drink any thing until she sees him. She fasted until the next day, she went to the hospital where the dead bodies were, she saw the three of them, kissed them goodbye, and then went home. Neither my husband nor me were able to take a final look at them, although later we were informed that Sarah and Thia had no visible injuries and died of internal bleeding and head bumps. They looked asleep. Only asleep. Except that there was no waking up after that sleep.

When they were being prepared for burial, an imam who is trusted by the family and who is familiar with bathing dead bodies and wrapping them in "kafan" was called. He was supposed to bath and wrap Khaled. But we needed a female to do the same for Sarah and Thia. I have gone through this experience before, and -although I am not qualified to give a full bath- I am familiar with the process and I can watch and assist. But this was an accident! And Sarah was so dear to me and the mere fact that she was dead was hard enough for me. This is not to mention Thia, the small angel. So I apologized. The imam said that his sister is experienced in this and he can bring her. When the sister saw Sarah, she broke into tears. She recognized her! She turned out to be Sarah's school teacher! When she was able to pull herself back together, she bathed her and the little girl while taking extra care, and while sincerely praying for them all the time.

It was a shock. A real shock. It was very difficult. But the good signs were reassuring. A friend of my husband called him to pay his condolences. Then he told him that he is calling from Saudia Arabia as he is performing Hajj. He told him that since they knew about the accident they were praying for them, and that he told every one accompanying him about the accident and told them the names of the people who died in it, and asked them to pray for them as they are doing their Hajj!

And now, their house is empty. Their whole life came to a sudden stop. It ended! There is no more "Sarah's house"! One day we were planning to visit them, the next day we were planning to bury them!

Thank God for every thing. Alhamdulellah. The three of them went to Allah together. No one of them was left behind. I cannot think of how any one of them would feel if he survived and knew that the others passed away!

This sudden wake up call has blown up my mind. It made me revise alot of things and practically live some situations that I used to theorize about.

May Allah rest their souls in peace, them, and all those good people on earth that we do not know of. May Allah keep your children healthy and safe. May Allah keep your families and loved ones.

And may Allah make this Eid a blessed Eid for all of you and accept all of your good deeds.

It is Eid, after all!

A New Green Life

It is really weird how something as simple as a new plant in the living room can be so spirit uplifting!

I am exercising, hoping to reach a point when I am ready to start a small indoor garden in my balcony...

I really hope that I will turn out to be having "green hands"...

On the Lion and Cats... Again!

So in my previous post, I might have sounded so biased against polygamy. Polygyny, to be more specific.

But that was not my point. I do acknowledge polygyny in Islam and is in no place to suggest that it does not exist.

Because first, regardless of being mentioned under conditions, it WAS mentioned in the Holy Quraan. And it was mentioned in the hadiths and narrations.

And second, whether we like it or not, let's face this reality: Islam, as we believe in it, was the final heavenly legislation to be revealed for human. So it should be designed to contain the worst case scenario. That is the simplest principle of design that should be taken into consideration of one want to plan some thing sustainable. Allah subhanahu wa taala is the God of the science of design, so that knowledge should be based on his knowledge and not go outside of its realm.

So Islam is not designed for the elite only. Islam is a religion for humanity, including the rich and the poor, the educated and illiterate. Islam is also for all times, for times of distress and for times of luxury.

Therefore, it should have contained certain legislation to contain those low points of the life of Muslim communities. From this logic we can understand and accept the existence of polygyny.

A woman, for example, might find herself responsible for a husband and children that she cannot afford to be their mother and wife efficiently, may be because of a certain sickness or something. Judging by looking at my own self, I can imagine that if I was diagnosed with Cancer, God forbids, and was under chemo therapy, I might suggest to my husband that he gets another wife during my life. Now put aside the fact that judging from the quality of most of the women in our surrounding community -sigh!- it will be a mission impossible, but finding a loving and understanding co-wife that shares us the house hold and has my children used to her and loving her will allow me to die in peace. It would -definitely- be better than having them get attached to their father's girl friend, for example! Or having to deal with accepting the loss of the mother and getting used to the new woman at the same time!

Also, I am thinking of times of war. We have seen that first hand during the Chechen war. The male population went down to less than a half! That left the Chechen community with an overwhelming majority of females. Now due to the pride of the Chechen women, alot of them did not accept to see themselves as co-wives. So they managed to replace their lost husbands and play the role of the woman and the man of the house. Alot of them did well, but they paid the toll from their health and quality of life. Also, the overall population of Chechen people went down, because of the drop down in the number of couples who can re-produce. Due to the nature of the human re-production process, that gap could have been bridged -even if alittle- through some men getting married to more than one wife. But most of them did not even try. I am not saying it was wrong. I am just suggesting that the aftermath of the war could have been made easier through polygyny.

That was just to say that I do appreciate polygyny when it comes in its wise context.

I am only against men using it as an absolute right.

Yes, I am a hard core feminist. But I am a committed Muslim as well.

And I do believe that these two can coexist :-)

A Lion and Four Cats...

Time: Fifteen years ago.

Place: My class in the Islamic school that I attended.

I am in my school uniform, sitting in my desk, listening to the teacher of Islamic studies while I, as usual, am putting my textbook aside and using my pencil to draw on the white space in front of me. The teacher is explaining the reasons for polygamy: "So if a man finds out that his wife is unfertile and cannot have children, or that she is sick with a desease that there is no hope to survive, or if the man's sexual drive could not be satisfied by only one man, then Allah subhanahu wa taala allowed him to marry a second, third or fourth wife". My hand is moving around the white desk in front of me and is actively drawing a sketch of Fido Dido, and while my eyes are watching the sketch coming to life, my ears and mind are listening carefully and processing actively what is being said in the class. A student asks for permission to speak, and asks: "Maam, what if the man is the infertile one, or the one that has a desease, or the one who cannot fulfil the wife's sexual desires?" I hear the teacher saying: "Then the wife should be patient and practice 'Sabr'"... my head is still down, my eyes are still fixed on my sketch, but for a split second my hand is frozen, and my mind experiences a momentarily revolution that my reason suppresses at once, and I continue drawing, while thinking only of our school friend from another class whose father has married another woman other than her mother -although his oldest son is a university student- and left his first wife a wreck, and all of his children devastated, and silenced them all -he is a sheikh by the way- with one sentence: "It is allowed in Islam and you cannot object on Allah's well"...

Fast forward for five years... my cousin -who is not religiously committed- is visiting my parents' house in Eid. He did not pursue good education. He usually criticizes us alot for being "so religiously strict". In that session, he makes a comment that being religiously committed can be of some benifit, and in an extremely misplaced joke he comments: "I can become a sheikh and grow a beard and marry any four women I desire. A friend of mine is saying that in Islam the rule is to marry four women, and the exception is the less" and then he laughs coarsely. I stare at him aggressively and do not comment.

Another flash back... I am at university, in my faculty's beautiful courtyard, sitting on a bench with my cute Syrian hijabi friend, eating sandwiches and throwing bread crumbs to the friendly birds of the university. My friend, who is a wholeheartedly committed Muslim, tells me that she heard a sheikh saying that the original case in Islam is for a man to have four wives. Any less is an exception. She smiles bitterly and tells me that if this is real Islam she is ready to accept it. But for her, genuinely, she finds it very difficult to share a husband with other women.

And this issue remained a sore spot in my heart. Islam allows polygamy. Which is something that my feminine pride does not accept easily. And in the background of my head the thought remains: my faith is not complete because if it was the Allah's rules will be of a higher degree to me than my pride.

But at a certain point I had to beat that cognitive contradiction and reach a result: either convince myself with polygamy, or reach a true understanding of its status in Islam. I had to reason my way out of this cognitive trap.

I put aside all of I heard from sheiks, and decided to refer to the original source: the Holy Quraan.

Polygamy is mentioned in Surah Al Nisaa, in Aya (3):

"And if ye fear that ye will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess. Thus it is more likely that ye will not do injustice"

So the mentioning of polygamy came under an initial condition or, let's say, was brought up because of another issue: the marriage between an orphan and her legal guardian. That was the main issue of the context.

The previous Aya reads:

"Give unto orphans their wealth. Exchange not the good for the bad (in your management thereof) nor absorb their wealth into your own wealth. Lo! that would be a great sin"

So Allah, in this Aya, is guiding Muslims to be just with orphans, and is preventing any one from causing any financial harm for orphans due to their inability to manage their own properties, hence the need of a guardian that takes care of their financial matters.

He continues in the following Aya. The context under question here is: if an orphan girl was under the care of a male guardian who is not a mahrem, and he likes her beauty and her wealth, so he decides to marry her. In a similar case, there are alot of tempting reason to do injustice: first, as her guardian, he is the one that should be counseled regarding her marriage to any suitor. So if the guardian wants to marry her, he will be the subject and the judge. Which is an obvious enough of a fallacy. Second, as her guardian and husband, it can be tempting for him to share his money with her and join them as one capital. This way boundaries blurr away, and prophets from her money and his money will be mixed. So he might be consuming part of her money knowingly or unknowingly. Third, as a guardian, he should be in charge of her financial decisions that should be taken for her own interest. If she became his wife, his financial judgements may become biased, and what might appear as a financial decision for her best interest taken by her guardian could be -in fact- a judgement made for his own benefit. For these reasons, a guardian should fear not being just to the orphan under his patronage. For the possibility of the conflict of interests. That's why Allah is asking men that if they fear that injustice -which will most likely happen since we are imperfect beings- they should refrain from marrying these orphan girls, because marrying two, or three, or four women in Islam allowed. It is as if Allah is telling them that there are many women other than this orphan so leave her alone!

BUT! Although the subject matter is not the darling men's green light to go and stack wives, Allah subhanahu wa taala did not allow this to pass, and right with the mentioning of polygamy, Allah has put the condition VERY clear: "and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess. Thus it is more likely that ye will not do injustice"

So, dear men, if you believe that you are not going to be just with your "other" wives, please restrict yourselves to one wife (or a woman slave or jariyah, which does not exist now, and that itself is a subject the needs a whole different post!).

BUT! In Aya 129 of the same surah, Allah subhaanahu wa taala says:

"Ye will not be able to deal equally between (your) wives, however much ye wish (to do so). But turn not altogether away (from one), leaving her as in suspense. If ye do good and keep from evil, lo! Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful"

Alot of sheikhs and ulamaa has explained this as a different kind of justice. So in the first Aya (Aya 3), the justice mentioned is justice in practicalities, like finance, residence, good treatment, spending nights with... etc. But the justice mentioned in the second Aya (Aya 29) is emotional justice. So the justice that men cannot practice is not the same justice that is a condition for polygamy. Under this explanation, men can marry more than one woman as long as they give them the same of everything except emotions.

As an educated women with some humble amount of intelligence, I would question this. I will be insulting my brain if I accept it without making the fallacies that I see in this logic clear.

Can some one try and be keen to treat his wives emotionally equal? Is this something that the "wives" can see and claim equal or not equal? Would any one do an effort to give same amounts of emotions to people? Are emotions even quantized so that one can try to give equal emotions? And if Allah subhanahu wa taala meant that it is justice in emotions that could not be achieved, then why does he continue in the Aya and ask men not to leave women suspended because of that injustice? If the Aya meant emotional injustice alone then why would he refer to a woman completely neglected as the extreme form of this injustice?

My understanding here is that, and I am making it clear that these are my own inquirings, not a knowledge that I am establishing, just so that no one would come here and accuse me of publishing Islamic knowledge that is insufficient to represent Islam!, so I was saying, my understanding is that Allah subhaanahu wa taala knows us better than we know ourselves. So although he made it CRYSTAL CLEAR that polygamy is allowed under the condition of justice, he knows that most men will not resist that temptation and will re-marry a second, a third and a fourth wife without paying so much attention to the issue of justice, he is asking those men to, at least, not turn away completely from one wife and leave her just like that, suspended in the air.

Now having you deduced what you deduced from the above reflections on Aya 3 and Aya 129 of Surah Al Nisaa, read along what happened with Fatima, the daughter of the prophet, salla Allah aleih wa sallam: 

"I heard Allah's Apostle who was on the pulpit, saying, 'Banu Hisham bin Al-Mughira have requested me to allow them to marry their daughter to Ali bin Abu Talib, but I don't give permission, and will not give permission unless 'Ali bin Abi Talib divorces my daughter in order to marry their daughter, because Fatima is a part of my body, and I hate what she hates to see, and what hurts her, hurts me.'" [Saheeh al-Bukhaari, Vol. 7, Book 62 (Book of Marriage), Hadeeth No. 4887]  
  
So when sayedna Ali radi Allah anhu wanted to re-marry while he was still married to Fatima, Fatima was angry and sad, and she complained to her father, the beloved prophet salla Allah aleih wa sallam. And the prophet, in turn, blamed Ali for this, and he said that (what hurts Fatima hurts him). So the prophet salla Allah aleih wa sallam acknowledged a woman's right to feel hurt if her husband marries another wife! And when this woman was his daughter, he prevented that polygamy to happen! If polygamy was an absolute right of the man given to him by Allah, would the prophet object on it or hinder a man from practicing this right?

Now some sheikhs explain that the attitude of the prophet was not because of the second marriage, but because of who the bride was. If this was the case, then why did Ali refrain from marrying any other woman beside Fatima until her death, and then after she died, he married several times?

Ok.

Now my last argument is all about logic.

In any community, the ratio of men to women is ALMOST 1:1. Usually, the women are slightly more in numbers. And this is usually listed as a justification for polygamy. 

HOWEVER! Think with me: if polygamy was an absolute right of men: that is, every man can marry any number of women -up to four-, think what will happen if every man married two women: almost one half of the male population will remain without wives! If a SECOND MARRIAGE was considered a necessity to satisfy the unstoppable sexual drive of men, then what will happen to that sexual drive of half of the male population if they were left WITHOUT ANY WIFE?  

Just think! And let's keep our conclusions to ourselves until one scholar can impartially answer our inquiries!