the eyes are to the soul as the stomach is to the…heart

it’s true. imam siraj said something along those lines, i think, but my context is french class and eid cookies.
image is something which continually makes me laugh. today a bright red shirt, black vest, green head-wrap and keffiyah – and people turn to stare, they do not know what to say. so it amuses me, [...]

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essentially,

ente a nosotros que no estamos,
comidos par la rabia, par el odio,
par el amor comidos, par la muerte.
- octavio paz, paisaje

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events.

oct18 – fast-a-thon (gateway ARTIKEL). it turned out really well, i think, with girl in french, girl in englisch, guy on bus, and professeur emailed later, all commending the MSA /really appreciating the event. and upward of 2000$ to the campus food bank, hip hurrah & alhamdulillah. PICTURES.
oct22 – eid-ul-fitr. and i know, it shouldn’t [...]

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bosting.

time to bost/boast, where arrogance fails.
it is the last few days of ramadan, realizing this encourages sadness and sorrow, pain. only that i live to see another of these months, and make use of it in ways i have not yet made my own. measuring life in coffee-spoons by how many classes i fall asleep [...]

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with this we begin

We begin in the Name of God,
Everlasting Mercy, Infinite Compassion.Praise be to God, Loving Lord of all the worlds.
Everlasting Mercy, Infinite Compassion.
Eternal Strength of every living being,
Whose Majestic Power embraces us on the day of the great return.
Only You do we adore, and to You alone do we cry for help.
Guide us, O God, on [...]

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what is in essence an epistemological question is thus addressed from a variety of comparative angles.

like zacharia says, ‘this is when you fall asleep instead of working and so wake up cursing’. on top of that i started suhur too late, and so wasn’t able to finish my coffee before fajr time kicked in.
i forgot the word limit when drawing up what i want to do in the essay, and [...]

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here it is

one in forty iraqis killed since invasion
via lydia: foucault and chomsky battling on youtube. such a 70s audience, which alone is cause to watch it. justice vs. power.
on minorities in grad school
polisci speaker series: “subaltern voices”. tomorrow’s is dr. geeta chowdhry, “race(ing) international relations: postcolonialism, contrapuntality and transformative possibilities”. i can’t stay for the whole [...]

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7 things.

1) at the fast-a-thon booth yesterday for a couple of hours, to look friendly while asking people to go hungry for a day, thus garnering money for the campus food bank. a slow day, few people stopping by. but conversations with those who did stop: a catholic told of her experiences of lent; a hip-hop [...]

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ring ring ring ring ring ring ring

today i took a sound-device to work for the first time, and so listened to mashari rashed while i sorted mushrooms. and then it shuffled over to raffi’s bananaphone, which kept a smile on my face.

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like us, the water unsettles their names

one metaphor for taraweeh (it also applies to some forms of dhikr): an ocean, of water, or waves, sweeping toward and enveloping, one after the next, rising and abating, successive hymns.
friday a guyanese iftar, yesterday a dhikr, tomorrow saskatchewanese familie.
sometimes i think ph-r-d and i are old already, we spend so much reminiscing over when [...]

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