receiving space

my rumination tonight with the al hikmah speaker series (“this earth was made for us a masjid?: an exercise in metaphor”) is about space and place. zainab asked for my notes. these instead some extended thoughts.
the title gains its first impulse from a fairly well-known tradition (cited in the sahihayn and various other collections of ahadith) in [...]

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admiration , murder

because the “alfiyyah”, it’s really a high school level text. it isn’t meant for advanced students. graduating from azhar 200 years ago was meant to equip students to debate with sibawayh. now people read the “ajrumiyyah” and tell me they want to understand qur’anic arabic with it. habibi, you aren’t going to understand the qur’an [...]

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loving the beloved

(yes, i took the title from the sunnipath event.)
great was the sorrow in the city of light, as medina was now called. the companions rebuked each other for weeping, but wept themselves. “nor for him do i weep,” said umm ayman, when questioned about her tears. “know i not that he hath gone to that [...]

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untitled-3

daniel sent me an email, a few weeks ago, with subject-line “warning: this email may contain sentimentality.”
because, ok, really? toronto? i (and noor) are floored. people are incredible, and incredibly generous. (this true for edmonton too, probably, but you don’t have perspective for what’s behind/in front of you. chickens can only see sideways.)
because, really. phuppo, [...]

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citation

at jum’ah zacharia asked the jama’ah what la ilaha illa’Llah meant.
if he’d asked me, i thought, i would answer there is no transcendent or transcendental signifier or signified except (, or, instead, standing-in for: no-thing except) the one unique ineffable and sublime Of absolute regard.

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day four

fa bi-ayyi âlâ-i rabbikumâ tukadhdhibân

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memorium

farooq: men are from mars & women are from venus? we should write an islamic version: men are from clay and women are from ribs
b: right, i forgot you were In Love.
b: go write your paper.
…this was some months ago. now all of farooq’s papers are done (“we had a good run, son”) and he [...]

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though they may call

kananaskis, july 27-30.07
basit, debbie, christa, laura, harry, maria, shelby

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what’s been done in the name of

i never know how much to trust statistics, but something i came across a few weeks ago said that 1/30th of the 2004 amerikan defence budget would serve to provide all the world with sanitized water.
if all the world had sanitized water, i’m thinking, there would be far less need for an amerikan defence budget.

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inna’Llaha dhu karamin

this was my weekend.
dhikr jam session tonight at our house with haji haroon. he’ll talk about the history of the various qasidahs we’ll sing, and about knowing malcolm x, and maybe his days in jazz clubs.
but mostly we will sing. and he will play the duff. and the voices of Remembrance will rise into [...]

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