long walk to freedom

“A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle and the oppressed is often left with no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire.”

~Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela.

A book that should be required reading before people graduate high school. I read about half of it before my trip, and now I think it is time to insha’Allah find the book again and finish the other half! It contains so many wonderful points to reflect upon, and truly helps you begin to think deeply about the word apartheid, and the very specific point people like President Carter are making when they use the term. (That’s another book I’ve been meaning to read).

p.s-this post reminds me of a nutrition course I took during university and a lecture we had one day about food systems in Zimbabwe. Before the prof launched into her lecture though, she stopped and said, “now, since the vast majority of you haven’t learnt about Africa in your elementary, high school and university education, we are going to have to have a atrocious 40 minute history lesson about an entire continent, to gain a rudimentary understanding of events that shaped Zimbabwe’s development and that specifically have led to food problems.” It was an embarassing moment, because the majority of really didn’t know very much. What I remember of elementary and high school history lessons were mind numbing classes about the exact same European countries and not very much about the rest of the world..

If I could pack the perfect book box..

Every so often, I like to treat myself with a little parcel of books. This is mostly something I used to do during my last year of university, when I decided to commute to school and give myself a little book budget in exchange for the saved rent. It was a nice way to keep my sanity on days that the transit system could have driven me crazy.

I’m not commuting anymore, but here are some books that I really want to get for myself in the near future insha’Allah. (Hmm…right now my bookshelf has books stacked on top of each other, so I think a trip to the furniture store is in order too.

My Wishlist..

a) Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes by Katherine Bullock. I’ve heard incredible things about this book, and generally enjoy anything written by Dr Bullock. For a taster of her work, I highly recommend this short article.

b) Etiquette with the Quran by Musa Furber. This is another text I’ve been meaning to get for a while. When I took “The Seventy-Seven Branches of Faith” at Sunnipath a few years ago, this was one book we were highly encouraged to get a copy of. I love everything published by Starlatch Press, so I’m looking forward to reading this book.

c) Salat and Salam: In Praise of Allah’s most Beloved. This is a book published by White Thread Press, and is a beautiful compilation of salawat you can send to the Prophet. I saw lots of girls with this book when I was travelling, and it’s a gorgeous little text.

d) Prayers for Forgiveness. A excellent companion of the above mentioned text. A book that would have been nice to have while travelling.

e) Famous Women in Islam: CD Set by Dr Umar al Faruq: I really enjoy listening/reading work by Dr Umar. And I’ve heard fantastic things about this course. Plus the course clips I’ve heard online are very intriguing.

f) Two Treatises on Mutual Reminding and Good Manners by Imam Haddad: We studied parts of this book in the SP Journeys course (or the class Attaining Good Character)

f) Quran: A New Translation by Thomas Cleary: I have his book The Essential Koran, which is excellent, and I’ve heard good things about this longer translation as well.

g) The Story of the Quran: Its History and Place in Muslim Life by Ingrid Mattson: Ingrid Mattson is the author of this book. Nuff said.

Ok, I”m getting WAY too excited, going to stop now. And yes, I do read more than just books about Islam. And yes, I do love public libraries. But a girl can dream of the perfect parcel…

wise counsel

These two paragraphs are at the end of the book, Agenda to Change our Condition, as part of one of the appendices. The truth of these words really struck me when I read this section, and insha’Allah this is a section of the text that I shall read often and commit to memory. (A side note: the cd set titled The Poor Man’s Book of Assistance is an incredible listen as well).

“Never demand a right from anyone, whether a relative or a stranger, for the simple reason that a stranger owes you nothing, and a relative is far too important to direct your blame at. Never assume that anyone in the world can really understand your circumstance other than from their own perspective. People perceive things based only upon their own personal frames of reference and their personal experiences. However, when aims, purposes and aspirations are similar, people tend to work together toward a common goal

Never belittle any discussion about people in their absence, even what appears to be harmless, due to the harm that can result from it. Guard your secrets, even if you feel safe with someone, because the one to whom you divulge your secret is not a safer vessel than your own heart before you revealed it.”

Source: Agenda to Change Our Condition, The Counsel of Sidi Ahmad Zarruq, Excerpts from The Poor Man’s Book of Assistance.

Instruction of the Student

Recently I’ve been reading Imam Zarnuji’s book Instruction of the Student, and alhamidullah, it is an incredible book. It isn’t a long text, but it is packed with tremendous wisdom. I’m not really very far but there is lots to reflect upon already. Proper reflections on the book later insha’Allah, but for now I just wanted to share the epigraph of the book which reads.

He who seeks pearls immerses himself in the sea.~al Mutanabbi
The epigraph is part of a longer poem that can be found within the book.
It reads:

Through much toil do you gain high distinction.

So he who seeks learning keeps awake during the night.

You strive after glory, but then you sleep at night?

He who seeks pearls immerses himself in the sea.

The height of (the builder’s) blocks depends on the height

of his aspirations; a man’s dignity rests on his nightly vigils.

Whoever desires elevation without fatigue

wastes his life in the quest for the absurd.

I have forsaken sleep at night to win Your satisfaction, O Lord of

Lords.

So let me attain the acquisition of knowledge

and let me reach the utmost degree of accomplishment.

one of my favourite parts..

my favourite passage from the third scotland street book.

“And there were people, and not just children, who did not know how to add or do long division, because they relied on calculators; all those people in shops who needed the till to tell them how much change to give because nobody had ever taught them how to do calculations like that in school. There were so many things that were just not being taught anymore. Poetry for example. Children were no longer made to learn poetry by heart. And so the deep rhythms of the language, its inner music, was lost to them, because they had never had it embedded in their minds. And geography had been abandoned too-the basic knowledge of how the world looked, simply never instilled; all in the name of educational theory and of the goal of teaching children how to think. But what, she wondered, was the point of teaching them how to think if they had nothing to think about?”

That reminds me of the benefits of traditional educational practices (and actually montessori education as well), which are focused on teaching children poetry and memorising primers when the mind is most able to absorb and retain information.. A proper foundation is a strong basis for future learning..

The cheerful feeling you have when nothing is troubling you..

Finally. After 3 years, I’ve finally finished the 44 Scotland Street trilogy by Alexander McCall Smith. I bought the first book during an unexpected ten hour delay in the Glasgow Airport a few years ago, and only discovered the other books recently, after a friend informed me that my letter to the author encouraging him to write a sequel was unnecessary. There are lots of reasons why I thoroughly adore these books. Not only did they provide much needed amusement during a very long wait in a very small airport, but Alexander McCall Smith never ceases to astonish me with his command of the English language and his ability to create the most unusual and endearing characters.

The series is also delightful because the first novel, 44 Scotland Street was an experiment by the paper The Scotsman to recreate the Dickensian novel. It was published in the newspaper in tiny chapters, which meant that each day the author had to write about 1000 words to keep the novel going. Oftentimes he wasn’t sure what was going to happen to a character until he had written it.. From the success of the first book came the second and third books as well.

Most importantly though, the books have also made me think about how literature can evoke a sense of place. Some of my favourite books, Honeymoon in Purdah, the works of Paul Theroux, and various travelogues of Makkah, are works that are explicitly about the author’s journey within a particular locale, and how the author discovers the charms of a place in a manner that is connected to where the author is in their own life journey. The genre of travel writing in other words… The Scotland Street series however, are a series of novels that powerfully bring to life the city of Edinburgh, within the context of the lives of imaginary characters. Though the characters are not ‘real’, the effect is the same. I can visualise the train stations he describes, recall the quirkiness of Edinburgh, and experience little bursts of joy when i recall the streets he details. (Dundas Street! I remember walking there!) It is the same experience as reading Cornelia Funke’s description of Venice in the novel Thief Lord, except I’ve never been to Italy. Reading her description of characters that are clearly reacting and developing in ways related to the places they are in, however, is something akin to the 44 Scotland Street experience and is not a journey to be found in all novels. The travel-novel is unique.

The other journey that Alexander McCall Smith opens up for readers is a journey through the territory of language, and I always find myself encountering new phrases and words in his writings. This time I wrote them down and looked them up. Aren’t words lovely?
Words:
Commodious: spacious, roomy
Insouciance: the cheerful feeling you have when nothing is troubling you
Post-prandial: after mealtime
Panache: dash; verve
Soubriquet: nickname; a familiar name for a person
Otiose: serving no useful purpose; having no excuse for being;
Peregrination: travels, roaming
Iniquitous: wicked
Quiescent: quiet, inactive or dormant.