The Spaces Between Places

"...I said what about my eyes?
God said: keep them on the road
I said what about my passion?
God said: keep it burning
I said what about my heart?
God said: tell me what you hold inside it
I said pain and sorrow
He said: stay with it,
the wound is the place where the light enters you." - Rumi

Ok, so yes... I have not blogged in a long long time, but to be perfectly fair, Boulderhijabi has not been in Doha, and as such it seems unethical to talk about boulderhijabiindoha, for indoha she is not. Yet. In 10 days time I'll be boarding one more cramped and oversold United flight bound for Doha.

This is my first summer as an expat, if you will, and I'm finding that I'm actually kind of tore up to be leaving! Don't get me wrong, I have so many good people and such a good life waiting for me back in D-town, but Colorado is hard to beat. Seriously, my time here has been so unbelievably packed with the best of everything. I've reconnected with some old friends and made plenty of new ones, I've driven through Colorado sunsets on the Western Slope, camped in the wild, burned plenty of plant matter (legally), exorcized a demon in the woods, and stared up at the mountains with pupils the size of saucers. Really, this summer has been hard to beat, as Colorado summers are known to be.

The past few months have allowed me ample time to ponder so many of the questions that accrued throughout my time in Doha. Perhaps due to a change in perspective, I've found answers to so many of these nagging questions, and I feel renewed and restored. Personally, I can see God more clearly by the banks of the Lake Fork of the Gunnison just shy of Hinsdale County, than I can see Him in the manicured mosques of the Gulf. So shoot me. I still say la illaha ila Allah and revere Mohammed and his ahl al-bayt. I am still a Muslim; nobody can say different. I can't help it if God flowed into me more strongly when I stood barefoot in the Boulder Creek far up the Boulder Canyon, than when I bowed my head at Fanar during juma'a prayer.

This time last year I was raring to get out of this small town where I live and head out into the big wide world, set out and make my mark... All said, I have accomplished SO unbelievably much, and I'm excited to head back and work my big ol' butt off. Being away in the dusty, concrete jungle of Doha has rekindled my love and appreciation of Colorado tenfold. Where before I couldn't wait to get out, now I'm melancholy at the thought of leaving my beloved state of Colorado behind. I don't have to hide  who I am while in Colorado at all. While I enjoy my Doha life, and I'm good at what I'm doing, there are huge parts of me that I can't show or cultivate while I'm in the Qatari desert. As always though, there are parts of me that I cannot cultivate in Colorado, yet are best fine-tuned in Doha. Life is always a two-way street. The grass isn't always greener on the other side, it's only greener when you water it.

So much has changed in the past year. Where last August I was an idealistic young girl setting out into the great unknown, now I am harder, tougher, and I won't take sh** from anybody. Ain't it the truth. Yes, I am a little rougher around the edges, and I have lost what little naivete and innocence I had when I moved to that big dusty city, but I am also more confident, and I am sure of myself and who I am. I am emboldened. I have a vision, and I will mow down anyone standing in my way.

Moving to Doha the first time was the best decision of my young life thus far, I just hope that moving back a second time will prove just as fruitful. I'm liking the mobility of expat life; I can never manage to be content staying in one place for too long. Give me a month or two in one town and I'm ready to burn the whole place down just for a change of scenery.

That's all for now, I know it's super concise. There will be more to come, I do promise you that.

Peace and love always <3

Writing about Islam on drugs: a review of Michael Muhammad Knight's "Tripping with Allah"

I have literally just finished reading Michael Muhammad Knight's latest production, "Tripping with Allah". Even though everything I know about reviews of anything tells me that I should wait to give this plenty of thought, the other half of me is so  ridiculously wound up over everything I just read I just want to SPIT IT ON OUT!

I should mention that I've been waiting to read this book for ages. It was released 2 days after my flight to go back to Doha for my second semester of graduate school. After an unsuccessful attempt to buy the book online and have it shipped to me (the package was seized and destroyed by customs officials), I attempted to find it on a short trip to London, only to discover that the UK release date wasn't until next week and again, I'd miss it. I asked Foyle's Bookshop to save me a copy when it came in anyways. I then tried (unsuccessfully) to convince a number of my friends who frequently traveled back and forth between Doha and London to smuggle me a copy back somehow.

All of these attempts were unsuccessful, and I was forced to wait to get my hands on a copy until I was back in this fine democracy, where everyone is absolutely free to be a total idiot.

Prior to this point, I had (accidentally) the pleasure of discussing the author (Michael Muhammad Knight) and his works with a friend back in Doha who shall remain nameless, but who directs some serious research at an equally serious policy institution out somewhere on the Qatari peninsula. Apologies if the conversation isn't completely accurate, it was a long time ago and my memory is shot to pieces. Somehow the conversation had drifted, and I was mentioning something about MMK's Taqwacores to this guy.

"Well, some people find his work really controversial."

"How so controversial...?" He asked in this way that just reinforced my already strong perception that he knew everything and I was just a wide-eyed white-girl adrift in the Persian Gulf (I've become exceedingly familiar with this tone, unfortunately).

"Well, you know, Muslims drinking and doing drugs and stuff... But I still find it hard to say that they definitively aren't Muslims."

"I know what you mean, I had this friend here for a long time," he paused and shifted out of the Dr. Academic frame for a few moments, "She wore hijab and would always pray on time and everything, but she would go to these crazy parties out here and sleep around without shame." He sat back definitively and puffed on his shisha. "I know about Michael Muhammad Knight... I remember all these guys I knew from the Muslim Students' Association getting swept up in the Taqwacore thing."

This kind of floored me. Maybe it's just that I grew up in Colorado, surrounded by only a handful of Muslims - 90% of whom were straight FOBs from Saudi Arabia coming to study at American universities, and to fuck and drink and stay up late watching porn and playing video games. So until talking with this guy, I've only ever interacted with one other person on a real-live basis (excluding conversations about the topic online) who had even heard of MMK or the Taqwacores. It's safe to say that there is no counter-Islamic culture in Colorado, and definitely no Taqwacore just yet.

He took another long drag of shisha, and exhaled. "So what, then, you're like one of his groupies or something?" Again, back to Dr. Academic and the wide-eyed intern who gets eye-fucked from across the room at foreign-policy events. Never you mind I would have gladly played the part of the wide-eyed intern getting a stern reprimanding across the desk of my big bad boss....  But I'll blame that on Knight's recurring erotic descriptions of houris and masturbation; my mind's polluted. Shame on you.

While I consider myself to be an American Muslim, I'm really not connected to this American Muslim "scene" that apparently exists somewhere out there in densely populated parts of the USA. I didn't even know enough about being an "American Muslim" to know that liking and praising Knight makes me a veritable persona non grata to the ICNA-type crowd; the protectors of the "real" American Islam.

I don't give a fuck one way or the other if liking the books of Michael Muhammad Knight disqualifies me as an "American Muslim", or even as "American" or "Muslim" at all. My Islam is not for the world. No longer will I wrap my scarf so tight, parading my conversion around to be gawked at - a reaffirmation for the rest of the Muslim world to cluck and coo "mashallah, look at how she became a Muslim and was born again." I hate that. Nobody can be "born again" after converting to Islam. Some people tell me that all of my sins will be erased. Assuming that they mean my sins before converting, I would still have a heck of a lot to repent for. Converting to Islam didn't suddenly remake me into an abaya wearing, rule-following, chaste piece of property that a man could one day own. That's the other thing I hear all the time that just makes me want to scream "ya habibiti, you know now you can only marry a Muslim man. Are you nervous about that?" Shut. Your. Mouth. I'll marry whoever I want to marry (if I marry) and I will not be consulting you about it.

Should I actually say something about the book itself? Perhaps...

This book is remarkably well timed to speak to my own transformation not only as an American-Muslim, but also as a writer. It seemed to me that the most heartfelt passages, and the ones that spoke to me the most, lamented Knight's transition as a writer - a pain I often feel as I transition from ranting blogposts and raunchy short-stories to essays and dissertations. It's painful, and I could see - even before Knight reveals himself in the end of the book - that it was a work of someone in transition. Not really research, not really a road novel, and not really a work of nonfiction, the book is solely the creation of the author's addiction; his drug of choice. At times it did feel labored, but even these passages seemed to have something more to say. I know this awkward style that he's writing in well... It reminds me of my own work. Labored, not sure how much (if any) passion to insert into a particular piece... The soul-sucking feeling of writing academic papers in a never-ending cycle just suuuuuuucks.

That's what stuck with me the most, really. I have to say that I just LOVED the climactic piece with Fatima and Ali... Perhaps because I can relate to the experience of spiritual soul-searching with a hallucinogenic/psychedelic aid. I had never given much serious thought to reconciling my Islamic identity through the consumption of psychedelic drugs, but MMK's book had me googling the nearest Peyote Way church of God and checking my bank account balance. Keep kids off drugs, don't let them read Tripping with Allah.

Overall, I just have great warm fuzzy feelings about the book, much the same as I do when I read his other books. I suppose most people probably finish and get angry or feel unsettled. I'm just walking around with a big smile on my face thinking "thank Allah there are freaks out there that think like I do.... But seriously, I mean goddamn! That sex scene where Knight became Fatima was hot. Wish that had been me."

Gender seemed to be a running theme throughout the book, but now I don't want to emphasize this book's discussion of gender over his others, as Knight clearly states that often people don't realize when he is writing satirically about gender. As a female it's interesting to read about male struggles with feminism, sexuality, gender, etc. - but at a few points I kind of felt as if Knight was almost hijacking femininity. Don't get me wrong, I salute the courage of any male to openly admit he's a feminist, or supportive of total equality between the sexes (not to mention having experienced Fatima as "the divine feminine"), but when men become the ones to experience, talk about, and analyze femininity, it cuts out the most important piece of the equation: the woman herself. It has now, apparently, become possible to discuss femininity without involving any females (with the exception of the ayahuasca-induced vision of Fatima). In the world of today, the feminine has become an object of male discussion just as the female body has become an object of male exploitation.

This is probably why they tell you to wait to write reviews, since now I can't hardly remember all I wanted to say about it. I almost wish that this book had been Knight's next book that he briefly foreshadows at the end of Tripping with Allah. I liked the main body, which had a lot to say about the context of drugs in Islam, and analyzing academic writing, as well as Knight's "set"- but it left me a little hungry. I had almost expected to be told about the amazing visions and Knight's own experience (albeit with some background, for sure) and then be treated to an in-depth sort of analysis of what it brought up. Maybe we won't get this, maybe we will. Who knows. I'm quite satisfied as is.

Whatever the point of Knight's latest and greatest, it was so so welcome, and a long overdue celebration of the kind of American Islam that I know and love. I'm glad I was able to slip it in somewhere between all these heavy academic tomes on the Gulf and this hanky-panky conference I'm attending in the UK next month.

Peace and love always <3

"Gulfishness": 10 months of Doha in review

I will never be able to understand how and why my parents decided to support me when I told them I was going to move to Doha. Honestly.

Looking back now at Maria one year ago today, she had just graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder fresh with a BA in International Affairs and a minor in Political Science. Determined to change the world, she was building castles in the sky out of farfetched plans to move half way around the world. Chihuahua in hand. On July 7th 2012, I was notified that I had been admitted to Qatar University's MA in Gulf Studies program. A few weeks later, my plane ticket had been bought and I had absolutely NO plans for after my plane landed in Doha. Fresh off the plane: I knew nobody in the country, had no place to stay, about $500 to my name, and a doped-up chihuahua.

Somehow, I ended up in a small and dirty apartment in the ghetto of Doha, following all the instructions I was given by QU. The first few months I was in Doha, I worked my ass off. Not only was I taking a full load of my very first graduate classes, I landed a graduate assistantship with the Gulf Studies Program that ended up funding the rest of my stay, and I also scored an internship at a prestigious policy institution. Seriously not bad for a girl who, 6 weeks prior had been slinging hay bails as a dude ranch wrangler outside of Estes Park, Colorado.

Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing and no idea what I was getting into. I ended up surviving my first semester (if barely), feeling like I'd just finished the Imogene Pass 18 miler in under 4 hours.

Second semester was, believe it or not, much more of a whirlwind. After having survived and worked my ass off the first semester, I was able to reap some of the benefits of having penetrated the underbelly of the Gulf Studies academic circle.

Gulfishness sucks you up. At least, it sucked me up. Before I even knew what was happening, I had already been branded, labeled, and locked in to my position. When I still thought of myself as a "nobody" I had already been blacklisted from Bahrain and drawn attention from activists in Canada, Pakistan, and Malaysia (not to mention a healthy crop of dissidents in the Gulf).

In this strange Gulfish system, a person is defined less by what they have done or accomplished, and more by who they are associated with. Who you know is who you are. In the Gulfish way, I am far more than just a grad student burn-out with an adolescent, ranting blog. To the Gulfie, I am tightly wound up in the Gulf studies academic circle, associating with radical academics banned from more than one Gulf state. More than just a pissed off blogger, I'm a possible American spy, who has interned with a US policy institution accused by many a nervous government of inciting unrest.

In all honesty, I really am a nobody. Gulfies really shouldn't be nervous of me, and if they are, its a reflection of their own insecurities. I'm just an eager student with an internet connection (and the world's cutest chihuahua to keep me company), ready to tout my bullhorn and make a ruckus.

I have a Guy Fawkes mask hanging on my wall, but it gathers dust. It hangs in my living room between a giant painting of Imam Ali Rezza and a Mexican paraffin candle sporting La Virgen de Guadalupe. I live always by my revolutionary principles, but being a nobody, they remain safely confined to my living room and my blog. I have accomplished nothing of great worth or note, and I remain a self-proclaimed "nobody". Despite this, I am so much more of a "somebody" based on the people that I know. That is the essence of Gulfishness. Proximity to greatness amounts to worth in the Gulfish way.

For now, I still have yet to do anything of note. I'm biding my time, riding the tides of Gulfishness that inadvertently swept me up. For sure, I'm enjoying the ride, and the hippie in me wants to just sit back and go with the flow. I can continue to comply with Gulfishness simply by continuing my associations, I would never have to lift a finger to get somewhere or be somebody. Just ride the Gulfie tides....

That's not me, though. And honestly, to hell with Gulfishness. While I'm not saying I don't appreciate the prestige of my associations, I'd much prefer to make a ruckus on my bullhorn, and continue to scream and shout in my corner until I do something of consequence; enough for people to get pissed off and take note.

While I look around my (insanely dirty) apartment and start to speculate what I'll take back to the States with me for the summer, I realize how far I've come in the past ten months - and how crazily far I have yet to go. As I said, I've just barely scratched the underbelly of this strange, socio-political-academic monster, and I intend to work my way through to its small intestine (so that I can make it shit on command).

I still have one year of graduate school left and a thesis to write in order to be conferred my MA in Gulf Studies. After this, I have a ridiculously good shot at being admitted to a handful of prestigious schools in the UK to get my PhD, if I so desire. Can you imagine? A pissed off, nobody, ganja-loving, white-South-African-American-Shia convert with a PhD before the age of 25? Yeah, hard for me to wrap my head around too.

For now, I plan on packing up my cheerful apartment in Doha and heading back to a beautiful Colorado summer that's calling my name. I plan on being highly irresponsible, indulging in some vices, and reading way too many books about the Gulf. I'm sure I'll periodically assault you lovely people with more blog posts, maybe even taking a nostalgic political platform reminiscent of Justin Gengler's "Religion and Politics in Bahrain". Yeah. I wish. I am far too lazy, and far too much of a nobody for that.

Peace and love always <3

Mary was a Prophet

"O Maryam (Mary)! Verily, Allah has chosen you, purified you (from polytheism and disbelief), and chosen you above the women of the 'Alamin (mankind and jinns) (of her lifetime)."

Rather, Mary was a prophetess.

This is going to be such an unpopular blog post, but I really just want to open some eyes and get people to think.. I mean really THINK about their religion. One of the biggest problems with Islam is that so many people are under the impression that in order to be a good Muslim, one just has to blindly accept what they are told, and perform the duties they see as "obligatory/fard" like ticking items off of a checklist.

I don't subscribe to that view, and I've always been under the impression that people should open up their own eyes and THINK. Don't fall victim to the 10%; don't be a sheep. God gave you a brain, so you'd better start using it.

I can't go into extensive detail in this blog post obviously, but maybe I can open up some doorways for further inquiry. Firstly, consider why it is that you (Muslims) get so upset or up in arms when you hear/read this: "Mary was a prophet". 

Exactly why do you get so hung up on it? I'm guessing it's for one reason: Mary had a vagina.

Every other prophet we have been told to accept in Islam is a male. That's fine. I'm not arguing against the prophethood of any other individual, only for the inclusion of Mary in the lineup.

Secondly, you might say, "Maria, Mary was never mentioned in the Qur'an as a prophet!". True. But can you tell me any other individual that is mentioned more often, or has an entire chapter devoted to him/her? As far as I know, Mary is mentioned in the Qur'an more than Mohammed himself. This is not something to be taken lightly.

Historically, it seems that prophets are individuals who receive revelation from the divine (whether it be through angelic intermediaries or direct divine revelation). A prophet is also someone who either leaves a scripture behind as guidance, or tries to use their message to reaffirm faith for large swaths of humanity.

Mary epitomizes this description/understanding of prophethood in Islam. Not only did she receive direct spiritual guidance from the Angel Gabriel, she bore the next Prophet - Jesus - through miraculous immaculate conception at the hands of Allah. In the words of Michael Muhammad Knight's character Rabeya (The Taqwacores): Mary may not have left us a scripture, but I say that her book was her son.

I don't find the argument that her name is not explicitly mentioned as a prophet in the Qur'an a very convincing one. I do believe that the Qur'an was the direct word of God. Unfortunately, we in 2013 will never really know what the word of God was. All we can go by is the version of the Qur'an that has made it down to us today. Never forget that there was a gap between Quranic revelation and Quranic compilation. Even after that, who's to guarantee that the non-prophetic companions of Muhammad didn't make some final tweeks? The word of God as revealed to Muhammad is nothing more than perfect. But I maintain that we cannot be assured that such perfection has been maintained in its entirety until today.

I find the story of Mary, and her revered status in the holy Qur'an to be more convincing of her prophethood than the fact that she is not considered a prophet by mainstream Islam simply because she was not named as such. Don't lie, she isn't mentioned or labeled as a prophet because she had a hymen (perfectly intact, I might add), and I don't find that a convincing argument in the slightest.

Islam has been transformed from an egalitarian movement of the people, into a male-dominated, exclusionary society. I refuse to give in to that anymore. Women are equal to men in every way, shape, and form. God has told us that. On the day of judgment there will be no preference given to men over women, so why should we act out such idiocy in our mortal lives? If men and women are equal in every sense, as God has instructed in the Qur'an, how can women not be prophets? Trying to say as such is illogical.

I am a woman. I have a vagina. I am a Muslim. I love Allah. And I believe that the blessed virgin Mary was a prophet of my religion.

Peace and love always <3

Why I wear hijab

Something about essay season in grad school makes me want to blog blog blog my days away... My creative side gets so beaten and downtrodden during these few months of dry details and structure. I have to let off steam somehow, and those of you who read this blog take the brunt. But hey, I ain't forcing you to read this. So sit down, shut up, and like it. LIKE IT.

I've been doing quite a lot of soul searching lately concerning my relationship with hijab, and why it is that I continue to wear it. Some of you who have been following me for a long time might remember a video I posted listing the reasons why I wear it. Most of what I said there is still true, but there's a lot of bullshit. That was still when my relationship with Islam was in its infancy. Now, my relationship with Islam could be thought of as an adolescent teenager, and my views on this topic have once again changed.

Being in Doha and immersing myself in the field that I am, I come into contact with so many academic types who strictly adhere to secularism. They cling to it. I've been asked often by a handful of PhDs why it is that I continue to wear a scarf on my head while we puff on never ending bowls of sweet shisha smoke.

The truth is, I put hijab on initially to form a physical barrier between myself and the habits I was trying to kick. It's nice to wear a constant reminder on your head that pushes you towards being a better person.

I don't think that hijab is obligatory for Muslim women. I hold no preconceptions about Muslim women who chose to wear hijab or not, I think this sort of thing is best left as a personal decision. Nobody can mediate between yourself and God in the end, and He knows best what is in the hearts of pious women.

When I started wearing hijab I still drank (although I quit soon after). I don't pray every day. I smoke, and sometimes I take off my scarf when I'm alone with an attractive guy... Does this invalidate my hijab? According to every serious Muslim scholar with a beard down to his knee: YES! HARAAAAM!

So why do I continue to wear hijab? I am not (by far) the most pious or devout Muslim woman. Does that really have anything to do with hijab, though? I think not. Islam gives me a great excuse to wear a scarf around my head and to dress more modestly. I can blame this simple comfort on God, too. It's great. It's far too complicated to actually explain to somebody in polite conversation why it is that I decided to start wearing hijab, but maybe I can express something coherent in this post.

First and foremost, when I wear hijab and cover myself until I'm comfortable, it signals to others that my body belongs to me. Let's face it: today, women are constantly objectified. In the media, advertisements, even in civil society. Women no longer own their own bodies. The sensual curves, intoxicating fragrance, or simple beauty of a woman are no longer her own.

This idea that women should cover because their beauty "is for their husband only" is total bullshit. A woman should cover herself or decide to dress modestly because she respects herself, and so that she can take back total control over her own body. A woman's body or beauty belongs to nobody but herself, especially not her husband. Men do not own women. We own ourselves. When I wear hijab, I get to decide with whom I share my body. I don't want the whole wide world critiquing or scoffing at the body that I was given by God, and likewise I want to bestow the richness of my body on only those that I choose.

My hijab is then a signal to the world that I respect and care for myself, not that I am "oppressed" and/or "owned" by a male.

To be perfectly honest, I also love wearing hijab just to throw people off. Most people in Doha automatically speak to me in Arabic and are totally baffled when I respond in my big fat American accent. Hijab commands respect in Muslim societies, and deflects a LOT of unwanted attention. Of course, you can never do away with all of the stares, hoots n hollers, but wearing hijab does help a bunch.

Well that's it. I know that's not a great answer, and probably not what many of you wanted to hear but hey. I don't know if I care.

Peace and love always <3

Chewing the Proverbial Academic Fat

I know, I suck. I've neglected this blog like crazy, but it's not because I don't love all of you...

Some of you may remember that in my last blog post I had mentioned that I was coming up to another big crossroads in my life, and well.... I may have survived. Most of my posts have related to my life in Doha thus far, and about my changing relationship with Islam. The past few months have witnessed a changing relationship with myself as a result of changing relationships with individuals, and that's the type of heavy shit I don't feel like sharing with the world. Except that I just did.

I feel that since I came back from Colorado to Doha in February that my life in this chaotic city has taken on a whole new shape. I'm feeling much more comfortable in my own skin, and I finally feel as if I can relax and connect with people. I was so shut off during my first three months in Doha. I couldn't let people in, and I actively worked to shut many people out (Sorry if I shut you out, anyone <3 )

I'm normally a total loner when it comes to people, and I'm not one to spearhead any new relationships. For those hippie-dippy suckers like me that buy into astrology: I'm a cancer, and I will freaking snap at you to stay away until I think I can trust you. Under this big hard, pointy shell I'm just a big gooey mush of crab guts, though.

Since I came to Doha, I've been looking to start branching out and meeting the "who's who" of my field (incidentally very easy to do in Doha), and I've had to transform myself from a boondocks-bred, hay bail slinging, blue-eyed convert, into an academic-type, professional bullshitter, donning plastic smiles in order to shake hands with the people I've got to know. I don't blame them, they're all brilliant minds who work much harder than I do, and who really know their shit. Sometimes, I feel like if we all shut up and listened to some of these people who actually have a brain, we could solve all the world's problems. But then I remember that the world is overwhelmingly populated by idiots... And I resign myself to brooding and blogging.

The first few months of this newfound semi-professional legitimacy had me love-drunk on the prospect that I could have the opportunity to be like these people... I could have the recognition and the freedom of the ivory-tower academics. I saw the path to a PhD and academia start to unfold beneath me... and I came to realize...

Fuck that.

I am not content to resign myself to the academic ivory-tower, as appealing as it has the potential to be. I love the idea of being able to rely on my mental capabilities, and to be recognized for your thoughtful contributions and postulations on the nature of politics/society/economics or whatever. But I just don't think that that's for me. From the time I was about 16, whenever people would ask me what I wanted to do with my life, my stock response was "I'm going to save the world," followed by a wry grin.

Academics don't save the world. They postulate on it. They talk about it with other academics behind closed doors and hope that some drops of the leftover wisdom might trickle down into the mouths of the people who need it most.

But we are still thirsty.

I have always adhered to the idea that street smarts trump book smarts, and I don't think that anyone can really have lived their life when they've spent it immersed in print. On the final day of judgment, the volume of work you may have produced, or the PhDs that you have, or who you know that's important will do you no good. The more I immerse myself in the unending task of pursuing a degree I'm not even convinced that I want, the more I realize that I am distancing myself from the true human experience. Every day spent climbing the steps of this ivory tower takes me farther up and away from the people in which I can see God so clearly.

I've only ever told one person, and now I'm telling the whole damn interwebz this crazy theory I have that I can see God in the faces of people. Since we were all created by Him, He has left pieces of Himself in us, and they shine through. In an honest smile, an insecure glance, or in the shining eyes of your new lover... God is reflected.

I have to be amongst the people. I cannot continue along this trajectory without remembering first who I am and what I feel the need to do to make this world a better place (before I die in a plane crash over the North Atlantic ocean someday. Mark my words, this is how I'm going out).

Again, this is all just ranting and raving... Consider it the musings of a crazy mind and nothing more.

Peace and love always <3

From Prescott to Doha: Islam 5 years on

What follows is a deeply personal account of my conversion to Islam, in a way that I've never written or accounted it before. Since coming to Doha I've begun to reconsider my relationship with Islam, and while I couldn't be happier about my relationship with Allah, I have found that my relationship to "Islam" itself is much more muddled. It's difficult for me to put this all out there... Please be kind.

Some of you may be familiar with the story of how I came to Islam. At 16 I got engaged to the most extraordinary Pakistani man. A senior in mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado, he was worldly, well-traveled, pure, and good to his very core. The legality of the marriage would be a green-card sham for sure, but we were absolutely committed to getting a civil marriage so he could stay in the country. Later, we agreed, when we were ready we would hold the symbolic public spectacle, crossing all the messy intercultural bridges later. His family knew about me but were not pleased in the slightest. It helped that he lied and told them I was a devout Christian (I was raised atheist). In Islamic tradition, it's acceptable for a Muslim man to marry a woman who belongs to the "ahl al-kitaab" ("people of the book"), a tribute to the shared Islamo-Judeo-Christian muddle. His family really pushed us into opting for the marriage earlier than we should have; upon discovering that their son was smitten with some blonde American infidel they threatened to bring him straight to Canada (where his parents were set to move from Brunei) as soon as he graduated in a few months.

Before all of this had happened, I had accepted an offer to start my BA in Arizona, about an 18 hour drive from Boulder through Grand Canyon and Four Corners country. It's one of the most beautiful routes in the desert southwest, to be sure. The first few months went ok, but when I found myself slipping back into a well-known and comfortable near-alcoholic pattern I had a typical first-semester breakdown and called my new fiance in a fit. He agreed to drive down at the end of the week and help me look for a healthier living situation. The next morning I awoke to a single text message from Muneeb: I love you - sent at 1:24am. I cleared out my inbox (back in the Stone Age when cell phone inboxes could fill up) and went out to attempt a jog down the way.

By noon I hadn't heard from Muneeb and started to get a little miffed; why hadn't he answered any of my calls? I broke down and called my mom to ask if she'd seen him. A few weeks earlier, his parents had kicked him out of his sister and brother-in-law's house in Denver after he refused to stop seeing me. My parents had happily given him meals and support, allowing him to move into my childhood bedroom. My mom finally dropped a big enough hint that he had taken off early, and was already on his way to Prescott; he should arrive right after my last class. It was a Wednesday.

I went to my first class. It was called something like "interpersonal communication and creative writing" or something New Agey like that. We had an in-class writing assignment and were then broken into pairs to go over our work. Not five minutes after finishing, two college administrators I knew walked over and had a few words with the professor. I sat on a boulder facing my partner. I don't remember who that person was - faceless - but I remember the sun shining gloriously on the pinyon and juniper on the hills just behind them. The instructor came over and asked me to go with the administrators. It was a tense and awkward walk about a block to the main offices. They told me to sit and to call my mom, she needed to give me some news. I remember thinking it would be something about my dad: he was in the hospital. He hadn't come home from a long run...

When I called my mom, I could hear that she was sitting on an airplane, the typical "dos and don'ts" were coming through the PA. She was in tears.

"Maria..." She sobbed

"Yeah, mom what's -"

"There's been an accident," she interrupted me with an uncontrollable wail "Muneeb is dead."

I shut my tiny Samsung flip-phone in a millisecond and threw it at the floor. I weaved my fingers into my hair and started to pull, eyes wide.

~

The rest of the day is a blur until I collapsed, a weeping mess, into my mom's arms at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. After that it's hard to sift through memories of individual days - it all just melted together. I know that I slept in my parents bed that first night back, drugged up on sleeping meds like a small child. I didn't go into my - his - room until my second day back I think. I found a soft, green prayer rug (that I first thought was just a fancy carpet for hanging on the wall) and an English translation of the Quran. I only wore his clothes.

Muneeb Anwar Kamal died on October 6th, 2008 between 1:24 and 6:34am, some time before a trucker reported seeing a white Toyota Avalon upside down at the bottom of a ravine on I70, just after the on-ramp at the 214 Cisco exit a few miles over the Utah border. He was driving to come see me, and was half-way through the journey. All the mountainous sections of difficult driving were behind him. In fact, he was found at the bottom of the only ravine for at least 50 miles in either direction. It's a flat, unimportant piece of road - the last few miles before I70 officially ends just north of Moab.

I read the Quran I found. I went to Muneeb's funeral at the Abu Bakr Mosque of the Colorado Islamic Society in Denver. His family met and accepted me with outstretched arms and tears in their eyes. We cried together.

It was inevitable that I would turn to Islam after that.

Islam believes in angels. And I expect that Muneeb may have been an angel, made of light, and sent to this earth for a higher purpose. It's generally accepted by Muslims that angels have no free will, and can only do as they are commanded by Allah. Allah ordered Muneeb to die that night, on that highway, leaving behind an extraordinary legacy - millions of memories with hundreds if not thousands of people. I am convinced that he is the reason I became a Muslim. He completely altered the course of my life. Everything that I have done over the last 5 years, everything, is due fully to him (and to Him).

As I draw nearer to another paradigm shift in my worldview five years later, I find myself thinking back more and more to Muneeb, and realize that I haven't been comfortable being alone with myself and my haunting past since he died.

I was born with a pain inside... A pain that lead me to experiment with drugs and alcohol FAR too early in my childhood. By the time I was 14 I could hold my liquor better than most college frat-boys. I started on crack-cocaine not much later. After 9 months of rehab and therapy I was cured of my drug addiction, but found that the pain had not left me.

For the past five years I've lived with this same pain, tripled by the weight of Muneeb's death. Five years later I can really look back at all of this from a substantial enough distance to make some sense of it...

Even though it was Muneeb and the hardcore Pakistani Salafi Islam that originally hooked me, I've gotten so far away from that it's hard for me to sit through a traditional, puritanical Sunni khutbah anymore.

I recently moved to a new part of Doha, a place with a bit more permanence and a "residential" atmosphere.  There's a big mosque a few blocks away that belts out the adhan five times a day, and then continues the prayers through the PA. Despite the fact that I normally abhor traditional practices of Islam, lately every time I hear the adhan and the subsequent lyrical Quranic recitation I am drawn without effort into prayer. My knees buckle, my waist folds.... Sometimes I haven't even washed wudhu, mostly I'm not fully covered.

My relationship with Islam right now is complicated. I'm not sold on the mass-consumption, Burger King, "one-size-fits-all" version (which is the ONLY version sold en masse in Doha), but I'm definitely not ready to give up on it altogether. It's hard carrying this burden around with me... I wear a hijab on my head, and cover myself in public because I feel it's the right thing to do. But I don't always pray, and I still wear makeup. I smoke. But when the fajr adhan is called, I can't stop myself from crawling to the window and following the lead of the muezzin.

I'll never be a "good Muslim" - but I'd rather keep walking around with Allah in my heart.

Allahu akbar.

Peace and love always <3