Be Good to Yourself,
We washed the dates
In hepatitis A infected feaces
Yet all you can talk about is that particular Bastard state,
Not your own
Sweetness
Showing posts with label ramadan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ramadan. Show all posts
15.4.21
13.6.16
#SacredEarth2016 through the Ramadanoscope
The Earthquake ( Chapter 99)
When the earth is shaken with her shaking,
and the earth yield's up her burdens,
and humanity says, "What ails her?'
That Day she shall convey her chronicles;
for thy Lord inspired her.
That Day humankind shall issue forth upon diverse paths to witness their deeds.
So whosoever does a mote's weight of good shall see it.
And whosoever does a mote's weight of evil shall see it.
Here, the Qur'an speaks about the Day of Judgement and Accountability, detailing the Earth herself as an ultra high resolution, female, divinely inspired, live, witness of human deeds. Personally this is an epic chapter to me. Muslims prostrate their heads upon her surface more than 40 times every day, in recognition of the vertical relationship between humanity and The Most High. In another sense, it is an expression of solidarity and horizontal relations with the rest of creation.
12 June 2016 was "Sacred Earth Day of Prayer and Action for People and the Planet", a mobilisation of more-than-material ecological remembrance and embodiment #sacredearth2016. A coalition of religious formations, catalysed mainly by OurVoices, the idea is to compel power holders to commit to deeper global climate safety by building a practical and moral movement. Over one hundred official events were scheduled all over the world which makes my heart smile.
Sacred Earth Day marked 6 months since the UN Climate Change talks in Paris, and arguably more inspiringly Yeb Sano and company's People's Pilgrimage. It has been about a year since the Roman Catholic Pope Francis published his AWESOME treatise on Socio-Climatic Justice, and the moving Multifaith Convergence on Rome organised by the Greenfaith team that connected Christianities, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim environmentally curious, conscious and activisty types.
Yes, developmentia, coloniality and NGOisation are real, but that cannot overwhelm the sincerity and beauty of bringing action-orientated spirituality's together in convergence for climate justice.
The Ramadanoscope
As it is the month of Qur'anic revelation, Ramadan, there is another ocean of meaning through which Muslims and friends can access the Sacred Earth, without intermediaries or gatekeepers, calendars or colanders. All over the globe we attempt to organise our individual, and communal lives to attain greater piety through acts of devotion, particularly fasting. Though the daylight food cessation element gets a lot of the airplay, it is the spiritual struggle, of attaining excellence in behaviour and journeying through the Qur'an, that is the fundamental purpose of this month.
O you who believe!
Fasting is prescribed for you,
as it was prescribed for those before you,
That you may learn piety. (Chapter 2 Verse 183)
Islamic scholars have written about this month's movement for centuries, here's Maulana Rumi on the spiritual richness and empowerment of fasting.
There’s hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less.
If the soundbox is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and belly are burning clean with fasting,
every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and new energy makes you
run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.
When you’re full of food and drink,
Satan sits where your spirit should,
an ugly metal statue in place of the Kaaba.
When you fast,
good habits gather like friends who want to help.
Fasting is Solomon’s ring.
Don’t give in to some illusion and lose your power,
but even if you have, if you’ve lost all will and control,
they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing
out of the ground, pennants flying above them.
A table descends to your tents, Jesus’ table.
Expect to see it, when you fast, this table
spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.
By Jelaluddin Rumi
This year the poet Daniel Hayy-Moore returned to his Lord, his work is published in books and featured in text and spoken form on www.ecstaticexchange.com and Ramadan is a major theme and inspiration for his poetry.
First Night of Ramadan
A single stone is thrown in
and the canyon resounds with the
hallelujahs of angels
A single breath contains the
known and unknown universes
Back behind edgeless
space are motions that
vibrate the heart
Back behind ancient mountains and
historical intricacies
a shadow gives way to Light that has a
door in it to
let us through
We take no step that
doesn’t bring us nearer
One sip and the oceans disappear
One glance and the skies
bend closer to hear our
emptiness
One heart-wrench elegant elevation
and we’re on a
plateau tossing a stone in the dark
that never stops echoing
Being the words
The social sphere is an integral to enabling and sustaining transformations, and thats what the relatively small official Muslim participation in Sacred Earth 2016 is getting at. For example, yesterday in Zinj, Bahrain, women gathered to launch their own Sacred Earth initiative and toolkit to drive ecoakhlaq ( practical ecological ethics) back into local Ramadan practices of consumption and waste reduction. Meanwhile, Indonesians have been organising large Zero Waste Green Iftars sunset breakfasts), which sounds like a lot of washing up. Back in the UK of A and the NGO MADE have a short blog post that touches on coffee, vegetarianism, drinking tap water, gardening and eating greens.Its hardly the green and golden age of eco Islam out there, for all number of unsatisfying reasons. However a lot of people have their ears open and dialogue is widening. There are some real jewels if you spend some time panning, for example a series of 20+ programmes from Iqraa TV channel called Repairing the Earth by Rhamis Kent.
Fasting not Feasting was a series of practical reminders, like Flashmob Iftars and Tarawih prayers with Trees, that continues to run through Ramadan life, pushing a socio-ecological solidarity and counter-consumer culture. Its 2010 website is still online and hosts resources that you might find a use for in family and community life.
- A simple 2 page tool about the Spirit of Fasting and the Environment.
- Ramadan Khutba Sheet for Friday congregational prayers
- A selection of healthy recipes from around the Ummah
- A short story for kids
- Chatterbox templates for older and younger children
- A word search activity for kids
- Some advice to Mosques and institutions
- and a trippy video i can't embed.
But, by connecting the spheres with decolonial tunnelling, accepting that climate change is fundamentally a problem of coloniality, I believe we can maintain integrity between our teachings, historical communities and futures. Just like they do in the People's Republic of Duriana.
Save the Dates
There are a few advanced notice events worth considering for the diary, thanks to various Muslim Scounts groups there is an action-packed 'Iftar under the Stars' in Luton next Saturday ( 18th) and in Chingford a week after that( 25th). A few weeks after Eid sees the return of the Willowbrook Arts and Music Festival (23/24th July).
Manajat
Wandering through your Beautiful Names, I call on You Al Mani', The Preventer of Harm, to make the pathways to protecting people easy for us, whether that is indigenous delta engineering in Bangladesh, social protection policies or the realisation of the rights of migrants and refugees. I call on You Al Matin, The Powerful, to empower the oppressed to voice and make their way in this world. I call on You Al Jabbar, The Compeller, to open the hearts and minds of climate tyrants, witting or unwitting, to realising a decolonial climate justice. Oh Al Musawwir, The Shaper of Beauty, assemble the courageous into an excellent movement, across your creation to restore balance, dignity and justice. Oh Ar Rashid, The Righteous Teacher, teach us how to speak with animals and plants, give our sciences life not neoliberal death.
22.6.15
Ramadan Resources
Five or so days into the month of Qur'an and I wanted to index some links to vitalising resources, primarily regarding the Qur'an, but also practices around Ramadan.
I found myself in a room confronted with Islam Channel just before iftari time a few days ago and it dawned on me that people might get the wrong idea. Every year it feels like the very announcement of this becomes weirder and weirder, and the channels are hogged with materialistic hair splitting talk of markets, dates and times which resemble the Bani Israel calf issue quite closely.
As ever colonial powers continue to try and territorialise this time with 'Ramadan Greetings' to their Muslim denizens (Cameron, Natanyahu). Last year I wrote about this as Ramadamentia, this year the fashion sector and high end hotels have also entered the fray. Neoliberalistan is as neoliberalistan does.
I have nothing against trade or creativity, in many societies Ramadan and the Eids are when creative works are published. Creative socio-spiritual fervour is indeed a flame to stoke, and thats what fasting and diving into revelation intends to.
Fasting not Feasting is a tendency to counter consumerism and gluttony, in order to socially enable piety and transfromation during these times. Starting some years back as public flashmob iftars, the reality of midsummer, and a wider cooption from the establishment invite different, deeper and perhaps more intimate forms of collectivity to express themselves.
Quranica is a Youtube channel that is providing neat Ten Minute Taraweeh videos from Sohaib Saeed, a hermeneutically grounded Scot.
Meanwhile, an attempted Muslim by the identity of Field Muslim shares written reflections on his Qur'an readings which are nourished by an Akbarian decoloniality.
Back out of cyberspace and in the real world, the ever intrepid Mehfil Ali have an interesting looking TEDStyle talk approach to their Ramadan programming.
Online Quran tools are quite developed too, if you can stand looking at a screen.
Kais Duke's Quranic Arabic Corpus Project, is a linguistic tool that brings together the power of training artificial intelligence algorithms in league with a community of Quranic scholars who know their stuff,
Tanzil is very good for its sheer breadth of reciters and translations, while I find Quran Explorer 's interface easier for simultaneity of sound and Arabic and English text. These are all developing fast with user financing.
I found myself in a room confronted with Islam Channel just before iftari time a few days ago and it dawned on me that people might get the wrong idea. Every year it feels like the very announcement of this becomes weirder and weirder, and the channels are hogged with materialistic hair splitting talk of markets, dates and times which resemble the Bani Israel calf issue quite closely.
As ever colonial powers continue to try and territorialise this time with 'Ramadan Greetings' to their Muslim denizens (Cameron, Natanyahu). Last year I wrote about this as Ramadamentia, this year the fashion sector and high end hotels have also entered the fray. Neoliberalistan is as neoliberalistan does.
I have nothing against trade or creativity, in many societies Ramadan and the Eids are when creative works are published. Creative socio-spiritual fervour is indeed a flame to stoke, and thats what fasting and diving into revelation intends to.
Fasting not Feasting is a tendency to counter consumerism and gluttony, in order to socially enable piety and transfromation during these times. Starting some years back as public flashmob iftars, the reality of midsummer, and a wider cooption from the establishment invite different, deeper and perhaps more intimate forms of collectivity to express themselves.
Quranica is a Youtube channel that is providing neat Ten Minute Taraweeh videos from Sohaib Saeed, a hermeneutically grounded Scot.
Meanwhile, an attempted Muslim by the identity of Field Muslim shares written reflections on his Qur'an readings which are nourished by an Akbarian decoloniality.
Back out of cyberspace and in the real world, the ever intrepid Mehfil Ali have an interesting looking TEDStyle talk approach to their Ramadan programming.
Online Quran tools are quite developed too, if you can stand looking at a screen.
Kais Duke's Quranic Arabic Corpus Project, is a linguistic tool that brings together the power of training artificial intelligence algorithms in league with a community of Quranic scholars who know their stuff,
Tanzil is very good for its sheer breadth of reciters and translations, while I find Quran Explorer 's interface easier for simultaneity of sound and Arabic and English text. These are all developing fast with user financing.
1.7.14
Tackling Ramadamentia this year
On 27th June 2014, the UK government published a video of Prime Minister David Cameron delivering a Big Brother Big Society sermon to his Muslim subjects. Its production and implications provides an interesting case study of how Muslims are easily coerced and of how Islam is being sold down the river by the slimy political wannabes who make it and other awful neoliberalistani transactions possible, especially during Ramadan.
In this web-only video, the PM celebrates the values of charity, contemplation and community, as his government has put a securocrat in charge of the Charity Commission , extradited poet Talha Ahsan to torturous conditions in a US Supermax prison, and viciously attacked communities in Birmingham and East London,
With imperialistic and ahistorical splendour, Dave began by extolling those selling (red) poppies for Remembrance Day and dwelling on the Muslim colonial subjects killed fighting with the British Empire in WW1, as if they had a free choice in the matter, and as if the First World War wasn't a criminally stupid waste of lives and resources worthy of condemnation 100 solar cycles on.
If we excavate our histories of liberation, we find a very different decolonial memory of the conflict. The Silk Letter Movement, of leading Islamic scholars of India Maulana Mahmudul Hasan to kick the British out of India was recently commemorated by the Government of India for its revolutionary contribution to India's freedom. This movement sought to throw off the colonial yolk and connect with the Ottomans, but was scuppered by the Emir of Makkah.
Back to the prime minster's sermon and Dave gave his support to the Department for Communities and Local Government's Big Iftar project where Ramadan and the FIFA World Cup are conjoined, feasts put on and barriers broken down. This is all standard community NGO speak, but in case you were unaware, it is feared that 250 000 people have been displaced from their homes by the World Cup in Brazil and the 'infrastructural work' it has 'made viable'.
Neighbourly intimacy (in the UK not Brazil) gets a look in too in one choice paragraph reproduced below for a good decolonial kicking.
Another corporate appropriation of flashmob
Government pronouncements make and rewrite history and public worth. They are excellent fossil fuels. The Chronicles of the Big Iftar, it is written, began last year and promise to grow three fold. You see the insular Muslims of Britain could only share iftari with other people as a rearguard response to the murder of the British soldier Lee Rigby - as if to suggest that the best way of Preventing Violent Eurocentrism is to throw a samosa at it, and that Islamophobic Zombies may only be slowed by rivers of ghee.
In the interests of (sn)objectivity, it is worth considering the positives in this scenario, and who they are positive for (caterers, attention seekers, Big Society pushers, box-tickers, paknocrats, house muslims). Human circles may become wider, but maybe they wont, maybe they will only feel wider and the folks involved are already involved with each other, maybe whatever the benefits, the problem is that its essentially still powerful interests fundamentally shadow puppeteering Muslims. Which isnt as cool as the real thing.
We must take care to differentiate those manipulating in a conscious fashion and everyone else, because worker bees dislike being likened to puppets, and we all value our selves.
Nevertheless, I guess this banks the coffin shut, and that the flashmob iftar, with or without the homeless people, has been co-opted for musalmanagement purposes. It has been badged and injected with government and house Muslim mentality and released into the general population. What began as misfits poohpoohing hierarchical and patronising relations has been reterritorialised by government agendas, and voluntarily enabled from the white supremacists within the Muslim community.
Innalillahi wa innailayhi rajiun.
So what?
The implications of the above are that folks interested in disentangling their deeds and taqwa from the service of imperialism, consumerism and white power this Ramadan must try harder than ever. This month as always expands the conditions of possibility like no other in the Ummah. As our deed fields are so unique to our personal circumstances, it is these which we need to understand better before committing time, fellowship, creativity and material resources.
To be able to decode utterances better is key to avoid being played for a fool or a tool or a mule, from Allah and the Prophets through to official and non official public relations speak, advertising, organised guilt tripping and social media.
There are multitudes of children of Thatcher and Blair abusing our ummastructures of trust cultivated over generations for a cheap publicity stunt or position play. I am not just speaking about the overmentioned Quilliam Foundation, or the responsible parts of the disappointing Islamic Society of Britain and its over-graduates, whose amazing ideas Inspire Inc. the hell out of us on an annual basis ( See 2012 edition of twinning Ramadan with the Olympics). Nor am i talking about large corporate charities who go beserk and character assassinationy when their photo opportunity seeking executives get caught out slowing the reception of relief to distressed Somalis.
Perhaps it is inherent to wider Muslim organisation in a time of hypercapitalism, characterised by our uncritical and irresponsible image management, facebook narcassism and dimness.
Ramadan has rolled into our collective lives, along with corporate fundrazing. For Islamicate charities this month is peak time. Like a date tree in the morning, there is no better time to tap that sweet nectar.
We are SMSed that the UK government will match fund our donations by an organisation that forbids its fundraising employees from helping anybody else. Through our letter boxes come notices that 'Their freedom... starts with us'.
What actually to these organisations do with all the money, who pulls their strings, do they really know whats going on, how depoliticising are they of their staff and smiling beneficiaries? how ruthless are they in parroting their institutional donor's mantra? Aren't there other organic networks of trust and care one can irrigate?
Isn't it all just getting a bit STOPKONY2012?
 |
| Mister Cameron in full flow. |
With imperialistic and ahistorical splendour, Dave began by extolling those selling (red) poppies for Remembrance Day and dwelling on the Muslim colonial subjects killed fighting with the British Empire in WW1, as if they had a free choice in the matter, and as if the First World War wasn't a criminally stupid waste of lives and resources worthy of condemnation 100 solar cycles on.
If we excavate our histories of liberation, we find a very different decolonial memory of the conflict. The Silk Letter Movement, of leading Islamic scholars of India Maulana Mahmudul Hasan to kick the British out of India was recently commemorated by the Government of India for its revolutionary contribution to India's freedom. This movement sought to throw off the colonial yolk and connect with the Ottomans, but was scuppered by the Emir of Makkah.
 |
| While governments like Bangladesh's slaughter members of this movement in the streets with impunity, India's government commemorates their emancipatory contributions with stamps like this. |
Back to the prime minster's sermon and Dave gave his support to the Department for Communities and Local Government's Big Iftar project where Ramadan and the FIFA World Cup are conjoined, feasts put on and barriers broken down. This is all standard community NGO speak, but in case you were unaware, it is feared that 250 000 people have been displaced from their homes by the World Cup in Brazil and the 'infrastructural work' it has 'made viable'.
Neighbourly intimacy (in the UK not Brazil) gets a look in too in one choice paragraph reproduced below for a good decolonial kicking.
Neighbourhoods will get the chance to enjoy traditional cuisine while watching World Cup matches on big screens. There will be a Big Iftar event on the banks of the River Thames and ‘flash mob’ iftars which could spring up in any park or high street in the country.The 'harmless fun' of watching football and feasting is probably not a problem for the Ramadan values of consumer-oriented people, but I believe that the injustice is two-fold, at least and that it should provoke at least a moment for people who reflect and consider what to do. Not only is the coupling of football and iftari-as-food, socially unjust to Brazilians suffering the World Cup but its subordinating of the socio-spiritual dynamic of iftari to curry provision. Remember Vindaloo?
Imagine your favourite Happy House Muslims and agents in this video,
Another corporate appropriation of flashmob
Government pronouncements make and rewrite history and public worth. They are excellent fossil fuels. The Chronicles of the Big Iftar, it is written, began last year and promise to grow three fold. You see the insular Muslims of Britain could only share iftari with other people as a rearguard response to the murder of the British soldier Lee Rigby - as if to suggest that the best way of Preventing Violent Eurocentrism is to throw a samosa at it, and that Islamophobic Zombies may only be slowed by rivers of ghee.
In the interests of (sn)objectivity, it is worth considering the positives in this scenario, and who they are positive for (caterers, attention seekers, Big Society pushers, box-tickers, paknocrats, house muslims). Human circles may become wider, but maybe they wont, maybe they will only feel wider and the folks involved are already involved with each other, maybe whatever the benefits, the problem is that its essentially still powerful interests fundamentally shadow puppeteering Muslims. Which isnt as cool as the real thing.
 |
| "What is thy bidding my master" "Suffocate their ummahtic creativity this Ramadan" |
We must take care to differentiate those manipulating in a conscious fashion and everyone else, because worker bees dislike being likened to puppets, and we all value our selves.
Nevertheless, I guess this banks the coffin shut, and that the flashmob iftar, with or without the homeless people, has been co-opted for musalmanagement purposes. It has been badged and injected with government and house Muslim mentality and released into the general population. What began as misfits poohpoohing hierarchical and patronising relations has been reterritorialised by government agendas, and voluntarily enabled from the white supremacists within the Muslim community.
Innalillahi wa innailayhi rajiun.
So what?
The implications of the above are that folks interested in disentangling their deeds and taqwa from the service of imperialism, consumerism and white power this Ramadan must try harder than ever. This month as always expands the conditions of possibility like no other in the Ummah. As our deed fields are so unique to our personal circumstances, it is these which we need to understand better before committing time, fellowship, creativity and material resources.
To be able to decode utterances better is key to avoid being played for a fool or a tool or a mule, from Allah and the Prophets through to official and non official public relations speak, advertising, organised guilt tripping and social media.
There are multitudes of children of Thatcher and Blair abusing our ummastructures of trust cultivated over generations for a cheap publicity stunt or position play. I am not just speaking about the overmentioned Quilliam Foundation, or the responsible parts of the disappointing Islamic Society of Britain and its over-graduates, whose amazing ideas Inspire Inc. the hell out of us on an annual basis ( See 2012 edition of twinning Ramadan with the Olympics). Nor am i talking about large corporate charities who go beserk and character assassinationy when their photo opportunity seeking executives get caught out slowing the reception of relief to distressed Somalis.
Perhaps it is inherent to wider Muslim organisation in a time of hypercapitalism, characterised by our uncritical and irresponsible image management, facebook narcassism and dimness.
Ramadan has rolled into our collective lives, along with corporate fundrazing. For Islamicate charities this month is peak time. Like a date tree in the morning, there is no better time to tap that sweet nectar.
We are SMSed that the UK government will match fund our donations by an organisation that forbids its fundraising employees from helping anybody else. Through our letter boxes come notices that 'Their freedom... starts with us'.
What actually to these organisations do with all the money, who pulls their strings, do they really know whats going on, how depoliticising are they of their staff and smiling beneficiaries? how ruthless are they in parroting their institutional donor's mantra? Aren't there other organic networks of trust and care one can irrigate?
Isn't it all just getting a bit STOPKONY2012?
15.4.13
Creativity and repetition: Happy Boishakh bitchin and Ramadan revolution to you all
The Bangla New Year was sung in through Bangladesh, from Dhaka down, with a colourful ritual fervour and much drawing room chatter. In these post Shahbag times and in the last months of the present regime, Pohela Boishakh serves as agrarian symbolic relief for urbanites and a spectacle for cultural nationalist values to wrap around and express.
I guess that during Pakistan times, Boishakh in this form was an important space for opposition cultural forces. Therefore a lot of what we see is a hangover from that period turned into state cultural policy, normalised by much of the middle-class, denuded of meaning by consumerism and historical amnesia, and rejected by competing political frames.
The students of the Charukola Art establishment, as usual, worked hard to create a menagerie of beautiful floats and masks. Some, like the one pictured below kinda scare my pants off. Alas, I should not be afraid, as these are not political aesthetics in translation, snakes are created beings with rights, community and a definitive symbolic roles to play in religious ecosystems.
Directed dietary acts, singing, and creativity create a political self, they are important to understand and resculpt if we are to produce an active political and spiritual self.
All to often we can miss the point altogether. In the words of national treasure Hyder Husyn, a pious folk-rocker with social conscience, reflecting on national independence in his wonderful song 30 Bochor (Years)
My favourite, constructive contribution was the senior water sector engineer Inamul Haque's (re)call for the fiscal year to start and end around Bangla New Year. This single bureaucratic change would enable the success of all engineering works in Bangladesh, by scheduling expenditure and physical development works away from flood times and denying a whole lot of excuse-making. Peoples lives, homes and livelihoods would be better protected from river erosion, coastal erosion and flood, who knows the possible beneficial impacts on land making and other sectors.
Muhajirs from Boishakh?
Like many other calenders in the region that bear ethno taglines, the Bangla calender draws from King Akbar's solarisation of the lunar Hijri calender that marks RasulUllahs migration to Medina from the oppression of Makkah. Visiting the cities for Hajj last year it was like divine geological poetry that Makkah resembled a clenched fist and Medina an open palm.
I don't buy the universal pretensions of status quo Boishakh. From inside and outside of me I observe that it is aesthetically and politically alienating of differently Islamically inclined political subjects of the state, who annually chafe through the day like a haji in an ihram on a hot day with inadequate ventilation. Yet the 'Boishakh as Hindu Culture' pejorative, though understandable, doesn't generate any creative work and worse still distracts the Muslim from the cultural stagnancy of Islam in Bangladesh.
Its not that young folks aren't interested in Islah, more that there are insufficient socio-cultural guides, audiences and spiritual-political protections to enable the processes of self-discovery and awkward experimentation.
This morning I watched a few videos from the folks at ibana group, these were pretty cute and were produced well. My heart screamed mashallah, my head retorted Salafi Triangle, but my practical sensibility respects how much this is relevant to the religious literacy issue in Bangladesh. The Maher Khan story depicts the journey of a middling heavy metal guitarist away from his music into a non musical 'more' Islamic present. Personally, I am hungry for a re-imagined metal that thrashes the forces and structures of injustice, tyranny and consumer capitalism, and pray that we haven't heard the last of Maher bhai. Maybe I should stop living vicariously through the lives of others.
If you were wondering about The Salafi Triangle, it is a shorthand for why a lot of Islamic works have taken their present shape. The frame is intended to explain, not detain.
Pantha bhat is to Boishakh, what Piaju is to Ramadan
Reclaiming Ramadan from the market, state and mislamist liberates the Muslim self, and makes fresh deeds and pieties possible. Taqwa and deeds make eachother, which is where grounded activism is critical and dynamic religion is so potent, which scares the pants off the seculib establishment. The month is a training ground for moral athletes, not a grounds for buffet, social inbreeding, and bureaucratic robotarawi.
Pretty words ey? What about results? It is very possible, as has been demonstrated over some years, to battle gluttony and the consumerisation of Islam together to establish a lightning rod for artistic, spiritual and socio-political creativity. Folks in Malaysia have taken up the idea I believe.
There is much meaning to make, after all Islamic Time flows though Political Time. As the lunar calender cannot sit in one place, it tracks around the solar year in 30 year cycles, giving us a historical kaleidoscope onto our pasts which disrupts Political Partisan Time.
I love this game, the intermediary Pakistani state was declared on Layla tul Qadr, the Night of Power, and the Bangladesh War ran through a Ramadan in late October through to November 71. Do we know enough about practices and feelings in those times?
Labouring the point one last bit, we may balk at Boishakh but how hopening are we making the Ramadhan experience? After all, the Islamic or not Islamic character of the republic, is a reflection of the state of hearts of the people.
.
I guess that during Pakistan times, Boishakh in this form was an important space for opposition cultural forces. Therefore a lot of what we see is a hangover from that period turned into state cultural policy, normalised by much of the middle-class, denuded of meaning by consumerism and historical amnesia, and rejected by competing political frames.
The students of the Charukola Art establishment, as usual, worked hard to create a menagerie of beautiful floats and masks. Some, like the one pictured below kinda scare my pants off. Alas, I should not be afraid, as these are not political aesthetics in translation, snakes are created beings with rights, community and a definitive symbolic roles to play in religious ecosystems.
 |
| Source: @danieltweetin |
All to often we can miss the point altogether. In the words of national treasure Hyder Husyn, a pious folk-rocker with social conscience, reflecting on national independence in his wonderful song 30 Bochor (Years)
Does freedom mean eating slightly fermented rice and hilsa fish at Bangla New Year Fairs?
Does freedom mean sitting under the banyan tree and singing Bangla New Year songs?
Music isn't haram, especially this.
My favourite, constructive contribution was the senior water sector engineer Inamul Haque's (re)call for the fiscal year to start and end around Bangla New Year. This single bureaucratic change would enable the success of all engineering works in Bangladesh, by scheduling expenditure and physical development works away from flood times and denying a whole lot of excuse-making. Peoples lives, homes and livelihoods would be better protected from river erosion, coastal erosion and flood, who knows the possible beneficial impacts on land making and other sectors.
Muhajirs from Boishakh?
Like many other calenders in the region that bear ethno taglines, the Bangla calender draws from King Akbar's solarisation of the lunar Hijri calender that marks RasulUllahs migration to Medina from the oppression of Makkah. Visiting the cities for Hajj last year it was like divine geological poetry that Makkah resembled a clenched fist and Medina an open palm.
I don't buy the universal pretensions of status quo Boishakh. From inside and outside of me I observe that it is aesthetically and politically alienating of differently Islamically inclined political subjects of the state, who annually chafe through the day like a haji in an ihram on a hot day with inadequate ventilation. Yet the 'Boishakh as Hindu Culture' pejorative, though understandable, doesn't generate any creative work and worse still distracts the Muslim from the cultural stagnancy of Islam in Bangladesh.
Its not that young folks aren't interested in Islah, more that there are insufficient socio-cultural guides, audiences and spiritual-political protections to enable the processes of self-discovery and awkward experimentation.
This morning I watched a few videos from the folks at ibana group, these were pretty cute and were produced well. My heart screamed mashallah, my head retorted Salafi Triangle, but my practical sensibility respects how much this is relevant to the religious literacy issue in Bangladesh. The Maher Khan story depicts the journey of a middling heavy metal guitarist away from his music into a non musical 'more' Islamic present. Personally, I am hungry for a re-imagined metal that thrashes the forces and structures of injustice, tyranny and consumer capitalism, and pray that we haven't heard the last of Maher bhai. Maybe I should stop living vicariously through the lives of others.
If you were wondering about The Salafi Triangle, it is a shorthand for why a lot of Islamic works have taken their present shape. The frame is intended to explain, not detain.
 |
| Source: The Developmentia Project, see also: neoliberal salafism |
Pantha bhat is to Boishakh, what Piaju is to Ramadan
On the subject of analysis of the political and Islamic self, lets talk about Ramadan. This year Ramadan will arrive around 9th July and take us through to the beginning of August, as ever it is what we make of it and we'll be sorry to see it go. This won't be a relevelation to some but, much of what has happened to Boishakh has happened to Ramadan, political reduction, consumerisation and mattabarisation. It would appear that the middle-class probably has a lot to answer for.
 |
| Boishakh: Pantha bhat, ilish mas and green chilli |
Pretty words ey? What about results? It is very possible, as has been demonstrated over some years, to battle gluttony and the consumerisation of Islam together to establish a lightning rod for artistic, spiritual and socio-political creativity. Folks in Malaysia have taken up the idea I believe.
There is much meaning to make, after all Islamic Time flows though Political Time. As the lunar calender cannot sit in one place, it tracks around the solar year in 30 year cycles, giving us a historical kaleidoscope onto our pasts which disrupts Political Partisan Time.
I love this game, the intermediary Pakistani state was declared on Layla tul Qadr, the Night of Power, and the Bangladesh War ran through a Ramadan in late October through to November 71. Do we know enough about practices and feelings in those times?
Labouring the point one last bit, we may balk at Boishakh but how hopening are we making the Ramadhan experience? After all, the Islamic or not Islamic character of the republic, is a reflection of the state of hearts of the people.
.
4.8.12
Mid Ramadhan Movements at home and abroad
It is half way through Ramadhan, the moon has fattened up.
The Bangladesh Government is stopping groups from assisting Rohingyas it deems terrorist/ extremist, in line with that authority on mercy and humanity, the Myanmarese Buddhist Monk-Government complex. I understand that the Ansar approach is our starting point, and that the Awami League, who created Bangladesh largely with Indian Assistance and Refuge have turned the country into a porch of Developmentishire and beggardom.We know from the video below that all Bangladeshis aren't such arseholes.
To donate, the Turkish IHH is getting through, the Government of Bangladesh probably wouldn't dare close down its operations. However the political solution mustn't be sidelined and the debate must find its ovaries. We must pour scorn on the mean minded awami-think that has produced such a shameless approach to those fleeing despicable conditions.
On the Olympic front, The Brotherhood of neoliberal Muslims continues to suckle on the teat of its Olympic credibility cow, with FOSIS recently joining the fray with "Olympic Iftar" and the MCB leadership backing the ISBs Ramadhan Disasterval 'Inspired by London 2012'. Its dawa, mainstreaming and good apparently.
Meanwhile, last week, as many enjoyed Danny Boyle's Showcialist Opening Ceremony that completely airbrushed out British imperial legacy but gave the nearleft a warm glow inside, scores of cyclists on a regular city ride with the #CriticalMass group were being kettled, arrested and bundled away outside the stadium. For cycling.
In the next video we see a poetic Muslim articulating his need for iftar being denied by the police and arrested. Allahumma accept his roza and those of all your servants with a taste for justice.
The Bangladesh Government is stopping groups from assisting Rohingyas it deems terrorist/ extremist, in line with that authority on mercy and humanity, the Myanmarese Buddhist Monk-Government complex. I understand that the Ansar approach is our starting point, and that the Awami League, who created Bangladesh largely with Indian Assistance and Refuge have turned the country into a porch of Developmentishire and beggardom.We know from the video below that all Bangladeshis aren't such arseholes.
On the Olympic front, The Brotherhood of neoliberal Muslims continues to suckle on the teat of its Olympic credibility cow, with FOSIS recently joining the fray with "Olympic Iftar" and the MCB leadership backing the ISBs Ramadhan Disasterval 'Inspired by London 2012'. Its dawa, mainstreaming and good apparently.
Meanwhile, last week, as many enjoyed Danny Boyle's Showcialist Opening Ceremony that completely airbrushed out British imperial legacy but gave the nearleft a warm glow inside, scores of cyclists on a regular city ride with the #CriticalMass group were being kettled, arrested and bundled away outside the stadium. For cycling.
In the next video we see a poetic Muslim articulating his need for iftar being denied by the police and arrested. Allahumma accept his roza and those of all your servants with a taste for justice.
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1.6.12
Guys, they got Ramadhan.
Allah is truly amazing in the anti - examples he has sent forth to us, so we might learn what not to be and strive for integrity. Today I would like to share the bad news that the professionationalist , britentious, mourgeouisie complex have found it in themselves to hold a Ramadan Festival: Olympics Special this year. I consider this yeast for reflection and alterity. Another world is possible.
In a move that probably resembles a sign of the end of times, a month of piety, revelation and spiritual athleticism has been corporately branded in association with the London 2012 Olympics. I have reported the matter to the Official Protesters of the London 2012 Games, SpaceHijackers.
The revolting organisation leading this charge of neoliberal Islam is the Islamic Society of Britain (ISB), or as we know know it, the
They are partnered by the City Circle and the CEDAR network, which is a pan European version of City Circle. These are both SMEs, Small to Medium-sized Entwerprises who most likely realise the truth of the matter deep inside themselves and are playing along for PR reasons. City Circle has historically made ummahtic contributions but now runs on fumes and tokenism.
ISB is not an SME, it behaves more like a corporate entity, possesses a hierarchichal bro-ocracy and has roots. It has wider membership, structure and youth wings and a rather vanilla lifestyle magazine called emel. It is a perfect government target to capture, produce and discipline Muslims. When is messes up and misleads, it infects multitudes. Now, there are going to be hundreds of sincere people committed to this extreme consumerisation of Ramadhan, camoflaged with layers of happy clappy shit.
Many of us have friends who were nurtured by the ISB system which had and iA still has virtues. Some of us have friends who gave them the finger and moved onto greener pastures as the organisation lost all backbone, testicles and ovaries. There is no need for holy cows or ummahtic protectionism as we are no longer talking about the organisational culture cultivated by people like late Ustadh Khurram Murad. The Remainders at the helm have a collective post 9/11 decay curve that shows all the hallmarks of terminal illness. Take for example their airbrushing out of historical founder Maulana Moududi to appear palateable to power. Allahumma grant them Shifa in honeyed sarcofagi.
The Remainders have decided upon a rather graceless and undignified route of influence seeking and social climbing. As is the modus operandi for this kind of metrosexually inadequate Misslamic disorganisation, they hide behind white convert females. I mean its hard to imagine how to give them the bollocking they deserve for this without the triple-point-silencer striking preemptively causing auto-sheepishness. Slap'n'Hug, my favoured method of brotherly reform doesn't work in a space where whiteness is a structurally reinforced virtue and you cant really hug people like this because of mahramity issues.
Songs will be sung about the Olympian shamelessness and lack of irony of this Ramadan Festival 'Inspired by 2012' tat; then appended to Royal Borough's, the GLA's and LOCOCK's utter superficiality.
There are so many levels at which these Olympics and Ramadhan are incoherent and listing them all will take days. Don't shoot, I'm harmless. How startlingly Eurocentric that a universal world event is even happening at a time when a quarter of our human family is fasting? Isn't it strange that more decolonial countries aren't boycotting our nation's human rights abuses, international terror, rendering, sex tourism and the scary militarisation of London?
I pity and lampoon the Ramadan Festival, but it is a classic ISB move to pull. As someone put it today, "its boring people being boring". Many of the ideas that they have appropriated were good ones, not owned by anyone but demonstrated locally by alternative non cultish movements to embody the spirit of Ramadhan over the past few years. The Islamic Society of Kittens has sold Ramadhan and undermined efforts to unsell it by adopting intentionally decommodifying methods of free flowing, nonbranded unconditional ummah love, commodifying and packaging them in the service of crapital, big society and organisational politics. Who's bumwave is it anyway?
The irritation of the Quilliam Foundation is widely recognised in the UK Millet, but as an SME they don't really have much influence on us directly, they talk to white power. Corporate ISB moving further towards the darkness should be more of a worry. Their minions are becoming more deeply embedded in government and establishment, briefing against alternatives options and entrenching Isoc mentalities. This has been a problem in the Ummah as long as their have been Pakis. We need to establish routes out of this life of gigalohood, it cant be good rizk to be a native informant.
Non institutional forms of being Muslim must be grown into this reality. The whole world is a masjid. We live in constellations not hierarchical tree diagrams. This movement failed and is now selling its real estate and infrastructure.
This sorry story is a blessing, because as I mentioned right at the start, it provides something to grip upon and throttle. May we take lessons from Adbuster's Tactical Briefings, try new methods and remember the goal.
Jumma Mubarak.
In a move that probably resembles a sign of the end of times, a month of piety, revelation and spiritual athleticism has been corporately branded in association with the London 2012 Olympics. I have reported the matter to the Official Protesters of the London 2012 Games, SpaceHijackers.
The revolting organisation leading this charge of neoliberal Islam is the Islamic Society of Britain (ISB), or as we know know it, the
ISB is not an SME, it behaves more like a corporate entity, possesses a hierarchichal bro-ocracy and has roots. It has wider membership, structure and youth wings and a rather vanilla lifestyle magazine called emel. It is a perfect government target to capture, produce and discipline Muslims. When is messes up and misleads, it infects multitudes. Now, there are going to be hundreds of sincere people committed to this extreme consumerisation of Ramadhan, camoflaged with layers of happy clappy shit.
Many of us have friends who were nurtured by the ISB system which had and iA still has virtues. Some of us have friends who gave them the finger and moved onto greener pastures as the organisation lost all backbone, testicles and ovaries. There is no need for holy cows or ummahtic protectionism as we are no longer talking about the organisational culture cultivated by people like late Ustadh Khurram Murad. The Remainders at the helm have a collective post 9/11 decay curve that shows all the hallmarks of terminal illness. Take for example their airbrushing out of historical founder Maulana Moududi to appear palateable to power. Allahumma grant them Shifa in honeyed sarcofagi.
The Remainders have decided upon a rather graceless and undignified route of influence seeking and social climbing. As is the modus operandi for this kind of metrosexually inadequate Misslamic disorganisation, they hide behind white convert females. I mean its hard to imagine how to give them the bollocking they deserve for this without the triple-point-silencer striking preemptively causing auto-sheepishness. Slap'n'Hug, my favoured method of brotherly reform doesn't work in a space where whiteness is a structurally reinforced virtue and you cant really hug people like this because of mahramity issues.
Songs will be sung about the Olympian shamelessness and lack of irony of this Ramadan Festival 'Inspired by 2012' tat; then appended to Royal Borough's, the GLA's and LOCOCK's utter superficiality.
There are so many levels at which these Olympics and Ramadhan are incoherent and listing them all will take days. Don't shoot, I'm harmless. How startlingly Eurocentric that a universal world event is even happening at a time when a quarter of our human family is fasting? Isn't it strange that more decolonial countries aren't boycotting our nation's human rights abuses, international terror, rendering, sex tourism and the scary militarisation of London?
I pity and lampoon the Ramadan Festival, but it is a classic ISB move to pull. As someone put it today, "its boring people being boring". Many of the ideas that they have appropriated were good ones, not owned by anyone but demonstrated locally by alternative non cultish movements to embody the spirit of Ramadhan over the past few years. The Islamic Society of Kittens has sold Ramadhan and undermined efforts to unsell it by adopting intentionally decommodifying methods of free flowing, nonbranded unconditional ummah love, commodifying and packaging them in the service of crapital, big society and organisational politics. Who's bumwave is it anyway?
The irritation of the Quilliam Foundation is widely recognised in the UK Millet, but as an SME they don't really have much influence on us directly, they talk to white power. Corporate ISB moving further towards the darkness should be more of a worry. Their minions are becoming more deeply embedded in government and establishment, briefing against alternatives options and entrenching Isoc mentalities. This has been a problem in the Ummah as long as their have been Pakis. We need to establish routes out of this life of gigalohood, it cant be good rizk to be a native informant.
Non institutional forms of being Muslim must be grown into this reality. The whole world is a masjid. We live in constellations not hierarchical tree diagrams. This movement failed and is now selling its real estate and infrastructure.
This sorry story is a blessing, because as I mentioned right at the start, it provides something to grip upon and throttle. May we take lessons from Adbuster's Tactical Briefings, try new methods and remember the goal.
Jumma Mubarak.
5.8.11
Hajja Aisha Bewley on the importance of Quran in Ramadhan
This speaker is the author of a great many quality translations of islamic literature, from the Quran itself to ibn Arabi. Currently gettign my head aroung Ibn Arabi on the Secrets of fasting.
Translated by Aisha Bewley, Edited by Laleh Bakhtiyar, Foreward by Seyyed Hossein Nasr.
Goodness.
3.8.11
11.7.11
Stop (im)Press: The Ummah Code hath been discoverethed
Thirty-two, or there abouts, is the number of solar years that it takes for the lunar calender to complete one circuit.
This year's Ramadan burns the summer holiday period, apparently we have had an Arab Spring and we fast with hope and scope. Just like in 1979, for the Iranians, or Laylatul Qadr, 1947, 14th night/15th August, for the Indians. (Reach to 1915 and we have the Late Ottoman / Armenian Mayhem hmmm)
Thirty-two is an interesting Ummahtic Time Period. If we pile on and superpose these images i wonder what we could understand. Maybe how we dance to the music of celestial bodies.
Thirty-two years is a good period with which to prod our collective selves for reflections of qualitative change. Deeds and taqwa through higher objective struggle, deen, life, dignity, intellect and property.
This year's Ramadan burns the summer holiday period, apparently we have had an Arab Spring and we fast with hope and scope. Just like in 1979, for the Iranians, or Laylatul Qadr, 1947, 14th night/15th August, for the Indians. (Reach to 1915 and we have the Late Ottoman / Armenian Mayhem hmmm)
Thirty-two is an interesting Ummahtic Time Period. If we pile on and superpose these images i wonder what we could understand. Maybe how we dance to the music of celestial bodies.
Thirty-two years is a good period with which to prod our collective selves for reflections of qualitative change. Deeds and taqwa through higher objective struggle, deen, life, dignity, intellect and property.
- How close are we to its core? What is the depth of atheisation?
- How are we treating creation? How are our lives unfolding?
- How does the Musalman earn and produce honour these days? How prevalant is humiliation and disgrace?
- How have our peronal and social intelligences refined and honed? Is religious education getter more or less stupifying?
- Are our assets safe from eachother? How secure are we form material poverty?
17.8.10
Ansar 2.0
Ramadan has begun.
Welcome, so glad you could make it.
We head towards Planet Taqwa, from wherever we might be.
Care to suggest a heading?
Asian weather systems are behaving in a bizzare fashion, subjecting its societies to conditions which are waaay out of the ordinary. Extreme flooding has displaced an estimated 10% of Pakistan's population, heatwaves and fires cloaking Moscow for days in a 40 degree BBQ and drought in Bangladesh severly impacting agriculture.
One big qustion that I wish I knew the answer to but havent recieved a decent answer for is.
You are from Pakistan and slightly clued up about it, about postcolonialism, developmentia, politics of aid, TWAT politics, Ummahtic mojo et al, so what do you recommend we do for the sisters and brothers afflicted in Pakistan?
DEC donations, else personal networks of khedmat. Duas.
Emergencies often cause people to throw all tentatively held principles out of the window and opt for the most seemingly actionable. Hence the radical pan asian arts movement holding a fundraising film night in ramadhan.
Yet what would be better?
We know that The Man is all over our money networks and every transfer out of whitey approved channels runs the risk of being impounded. US drones are targetting flood victims while their sister vehicles 'help' the pakistan military conduct relief ops. The Pakistan Taliban urges the rejection of USAID, while Sloane Ranger Apa uses allegories of dying men and 'get in there before the taliban to'.
Allah protect them. Make us adequate Ansar.
Welcome, so glad you could make it.
We head towards Planet Taqwa, from wherever we might be.
Care to suggest a heading?
Asian weather systems are behaving in a bizzare fashion, subjecting its societies to conditions which are waaay out of the ordinary. Extreme flooding has displaced an estimated 10% of Pakistan's population, heatwaves and fires cloaking Moscow for days in a 40 degree BBQ and drought in Bangladesh severly impacting agriculture.
One big qustion that I wish I knew the answer to but havent recieved a decent answer for is.
You are from Pakistan and slightly clued up about it, about postcolonialism, developmentia, politics of aid, TWAT politics, Ummahtic mojo et al, so what do you recommend we do for the sisters and brothers afflicted in Pakistan?
DEC donations, else personal networks of khedmat. Duas.
Emergencies often cause people to throw all tentatively held principles out of the window and opt for the most seemingly actionable. Hence the radical pan asian arts movement holding a fundraising film night in ramadhan.
Yet what would be better?
We know that The Man is all over our money networks and every transfer out of whitey approved channels runs the risk of being impounded. US drones are targetting flood victims while their sister vehicles 'help' the pakistan military conduct relief ops. The Pakistan Taliban urges the rejection of USAID, while Sloane Ranger Apa uses allegories of dying men and 'get in there before the taliban to'.
Allah protect them. Make us adequate Ansar.
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