"The dark side of Dubai" (The Independent)

Scary read, but well worth it. Yes, I know everyone posted this last week. I'm a slow reader, sthu.

' Updating the Mosque for the 21st Century' By Carla Power (Time)

A new generation of Muslim builders and designers, as well as non-Muslims designing for Muslim groups, often in Europe or North America, are updating the mosque for the 21st century, sparking not just a hugely creative period in Islamic design, but one riven by controversy. The disputes over modern mosques echo larger debates taking place in the Islamic world today about gender, power and, particularly in immigrant communities, Islam's place in Western societies.

Interesting. Wish there was a slideshow with it, though.

Highlights:

The most daring buildings are dreamt up by second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants, who have the confidence and cash to build stone-and-glass symbols of Islam's growing strength in places like Europe. Simply importing traditional mosque architecture "doesn't express loyalty to your current surroundings," says Zulfiqar Husain, honorary secretary of an innovative new eco-mosque in Manchester, England. "It almost expresses that you want to be separate from the society you live in."

Particularly in Europe, mosques have become the architectural equivalent of the veil: visible signs of Islam's presence and thus sites for tension between Muslims and non-Muslim traditionalists.

Hm. The minaret (or not) debate (page 2) is pretty interesting...

Unsurprisingly, it's immigrant Muslim communities that are pushing the biggest changes. "The Western mosque is fast becoming the site of contestation between the kind of Muslims who espouse the traditional mosque, and those who want to win proportionate space for women," says MIT's Khalidi. "The second generation are the ones demanding, and often getting, that kind of space." Architectural historian Khan estimates that until recently, North American mosques gave only about 15% of their space to women. Over the past five years or so, the space women have access to has increased to at least 50%.

In the main hall hangs a bronze chandelier, dangling with hand-blown glass raindrops — a visual allusion to the Koranic verse that says Allah's light should fall on believers like drops of rain.

:)

“Life is on hold until you get married” by Zahed Amanullah

Author Shelina Zahra Janmohamed sits down with us to discuss the issues brought up in her new book Love in a Headscarf, which documents Janmohamed's search for a partner in a landscaped blurred by culture clashes, mixed identities, and double standards.

Really nice read...

Highlights:

Of course, it’s everyone’s personal choice as to who they marry, but it raises questions to me about the nature of that relationship and what men are expecting from their wives and what women are expecting from their husbands. Certainly in my experience, there was a lot of cultural discussion that goes on with women on not just how to get married but how to be married and how to maintain that relationship and what your expectations should be and about being realistic.

And I always found it really unfair that men never seemed to get that same kind of discussion. When we would go to weddings or mehndi parties or sit around with the aunties, there would be a lot of discussion about being married. But boys never got that. I kind of felt it was very unfair that women had the burden of carrying the relationship and men could kind of just swim along and it would all be fine because women would – I was certainly advised to – give in for the first 2 to 5 years and then it would all be fine.

As I explored more this idea of Divine love, I started to understand that the love you have for your partner is actually part of that greater Divine love. And you need to see yourself through that other person’s eyes to realise where you fit in to the bigger scheme of things. Nobody ever told me that.

...if you want somebody to get married, there’s no point in telling them just to accept anyone. You’ve actually got to take some responsibility to help them and not just send any old anyone their way. Which I think was, perhaps, the traditional way. “Oh, she’s not married. Anyone will do.”

But I think there are similar problems among men. They’ve just been less eloquent and lyrical about them than women. I think we need to start to hear from them and what exactly is going on and where they are in this picture.

From what you’ve gone though, this process seems to be an accelerated process of learning, if taken seriously. Learning about yourself and, on both sides, revealing who you are. Like you said, it’s the one time where you actually have to put your cards on the table and say, “This is exactly who I am.” If you have secrets at that point, then you’re putting your future marriage at risk.

It does take a certain amount of self-awareness, though. You have to know what you’re saying you are is actually what you are.

I gotta disagree with that, a bit. Some people (rishtas) can handle candid conversations about expectations and self evaluations; others cannot and really dislike it. I think that discrepancy adds another layer of complexity in the process...

Are you optimistic that in generations to come, this situation will change?

I’m not very hopeful, actually. Because it seems that it’s women who are perpetuating it. That’s what really concerns me. Because all that will happen is that there will be a lot of single women who are older, very well educated, very sharp, very religious. It is heartbreaking. The men who are their equivalents, many of them who are not married, many of them don’t want to marry women of that age. And the mothers and matchmakers are encouraging them.

If the mothers [of sons] are saying, “Well, we’re going to take you back home to marry your wife” or “you can do what you like, if you’re a boy, until you get married. If you’re a woman, you need to maintain your reputation,” then I don’t really see how that can ever change unless there are mothers of sons who are brave enough to change that. And men themselves who are brave enough to change it.

Hadith of the Week 20

Narrated by Abu Huraira:


The Prophet said, "Beware of suspicion, for suspicion is the worst of false tales; and do not look for the others' faults and do not spy, and do not be jealous of one another, and do not desert (cut your relation with) one another, and do not hate one another; and O Allah's worshipers! Be brothers (as Allah has ordered you!)"

[Bukhari'

Eco Font

Cool idea.

Appealing ideas are often simple: how much of a letter can be removed while maintaining readability? After extensive testing with all kinds of shapes, the best results were achieved using small circles. After lots of late hours (and coffee) this resulted in a font that uses up to 20% less ink. Free to download, free to use.

http://www.ecofont.eu