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

No Mosque for Me: the solitary Muslim

"The mosque needs to be a hospital for the broken, not a guild for 'good people'."

-Nihal Khan, Mosques are Missing the Point

I took my shahada with two of my very best friends in the whole world - Ali Alqattan and sayyed Hussain Yaseen - as well as a man I'd never met and an Iraqi (I think he was Iraqi) shaikh, at the Al Zahraa Islamic Center in South Denver. Honestly though, I really said my shahada at about 1am on a cold October night in 2008 a year before. This shahada, the moment when I really surrendered my soul to God, will never be recognized by established Islam. Why? Because there was no witness but Allah and I. There is no better witness than He...

I have been living in the city of Doha, Qatar for about 6 months now. I could not be happier that I decided to fling myself across the globe and land in this chaotic, dirty, and sometimes frustrating place. I do love it here, and as the 'isha call to prayer begins its slow ripple across my unpolished corner of the city, I can feel my heart begin to swell. Every day, five times a day, that beautiful reminder comes calling to us from the lips of hundreds - maybe thousands - of dedicated muezzins. I wish there was a better word to use in English... The Arabic, adhan, seems much more fitting, because for me this adhan does not always call me to 'prayer' in the way that Muslims are prescribed.

When I first converted to Islam, I was told to seek out other Muslims, since one cannot practice Islam in solitude. I was told that Islam is communal, and that it is only through community that one can experience the full range of the religion. For me this has never been the case. I took my shahada alone, and I have aways been a solitary Muslim.

I don't feel welcome in mosques. Perhaps it's different for the brothers who frequent various mosques, anonymously joining different groups and masjids. Today, as a woman, I do not feel welcome in the mosque. Any mosque. I have yet to find a masjid where I feel as if I can connect with God or experience any remnant of spirituality.

One of my favorite lines from Michael Mohammed Knight's The Taqwacores is when a group of 5 characters visit the Rochester mosque after dark. Muzammil, a gay punk Muslim expressed my exact sentiments: "The only thing that ever made me uncomfortable in a masjid, was people..." As a woman, every single time I want to visit a masjid I have to run through a mental checklist that begins first and foremost with the hope that the mosque even accommodates women. In Doha it's all too common for there to be no section for women at all. If it were up to me, I don't give two shits about praying next to men, but unfortunately 90% of the Muslim population doesn't agree with me on that.

Even if I find a masjid that has a section for women, it is usually run or staffed by self-righteous khaleeji types who scold you to stand in a straight line, or chastise you for making wudu with fingernail polish on. Women these days have a tendency to dissect one another, picking each other apart piece by piece in an effort to boost their own self esteem in comparison. I do it too, I won't lie. The problem is that too many people do not leave these habits and unhealthy emotions at the door of the masjid. They carry them inside, heavy as weights, ready to cast them upon someone else. I don't like going to the masjid anymore.

Let's be honest, as a female convert who identifies as Shia, who has light skin and light blue eyes, I attract attention in any masjid I decide to visit. The problem with being an obvious convert is that my brothers and sisters, praise them, always think they are helping me by pointing out my flaws. God bless them for trying to help (if they really are saying it for the right reasons), but most of the time I'm aware of the tiny "flaw" they're pointing out, whether it be nail polish or letting my hijab show part of my neck, and I could not give a flying fuck.

I don't go to the masjid because I want to know about the "latest scholarship" from mullah so-and-so that's  going to set Muslim thinking back another few years. I go to the masjid because it is the house of my God, and I want to be closer to Him. I want to come to the masjid because it is a safe place to be, and a place where I can feel the arms of God closing in around me...

There is no mosque for me... No masjid I can visit and feel welcomed and swallowed up by Allah. At least none that I have visited yet. This strict, robed vein of Islam that now throbs through the tribal sandscape of the Arabian peninsula is dead to me. I do not see in it a reflection of the Allah who witnessed my shahada on Quince avenue in Boulder that frozen October evening.

Is He not the God of all this Earth? Islam should be open and embracing, not cold and exclusive.

If there is no masjid for you, should you build your own? I came across this amazing occurrence of women only masjids in China, and totally fell in love with the idea. Reading about the phenomenon on OnIslam.org, within a paragraph or two the reader is assured that "Prayers are led by a male imam in a mosque 100 meters away with the service usually piped into the room through a loudspeaker to the female worshippers." The women are also "masculinized" through their 'dubious and heavy workload'. That's all bullshit. 

I read another article on the same topic from China Daily  that describes something much closer to reality. It talks about how this phenomenon spread across China hundreds of years ago, after women felt unwelcome in mosques and set out to create their own holy space. It talks about how many women trained to be imams, so that they could lead their fellow worshippers in prayer. I can hear the words bubbling up from your lips already "That's biddaa!! Women as imams?? Blasphemy!!"

In my humble opinion, I think that the prophet might smile upon such an initiative, when women no longer feel welcome in mosques today. "Children of Adam, take your pleasantness to every Mosque." (Qur'an 7:31) he might say...

This leads me to imagine what my own "utopian women only mosque" might be like. All criticism would be checked at the door, none would be allowed to call out another for their appearance, or for their words and actions outside of the mosque. It would be a safe place where women could come and lay down their souls before Allah without fear of reprisal, a place where they could truly connect with and experience the divine in almost any way they saw fit. No Muslim woman would be excluded. 

The fact that this description is laughable to most Muslims worries me. Has Islam so fundamentally lost its way that it cannot imagine such a space for its women? Where is our mosque? The mosque for women and converts, Shia and uncovered, the unclean and the junkie? 

I'll tell you one thing for certain, it's nowhere to be found in Doha.

Peace and love always <3

Five Reasons Why I'm Dangerous: Inspired by Bahrain

"You gotta snap some collars and let them motherfuckers know you here to take them out anytime you feel like it! You gotta get the ground beneath your feet, partner, get the wind behind your back and go out in a blaze if you got to! Otherwise you ain't shit! You might as well be dead your damn self!"

- Tupac as Bishop in Juice (1992)

After having finished my first semester of graduate school successfully, I was planning on cutting out on responsibility entirely. I decided that before heading back home to Colorado to see my family and catch up on some other quintessential Colorado activities, I would take 24 hours to visit neighboring Bahrain and spend some time with an old friend. For those who aren't aware, Bahrain now has mandatory security checks for first time visitors to the tiny Persian Gulf country. Your passports are shuffled off into a sketchy back-room where they are scrutinized carefully by security goons. By all appearances, they simply plug your name into Google and see what it spits out. If you're not too offensive in any way: *stamp* welcome to Bahrain. But for those of us who don't know how to keep our mouths shut, it's a bit more exciting. 

After 3 hours of waiting in a security corral, I was eventually asked to go into said sketchy back-room and talk to the head goon. He informed me that my name had been flagged by immigration upon the initial security screening. After a series of secondary security checks, they decided that I was a "national security threat" and they could not issue me a visa to enter the country. I pulled all the strings in my arsenal yet eventually conceded defeat, and flew back to Doha 6 hours after arriving.

Fullstop. Me? 

Why would anybody even care about stupid ol' Maria Hardman? I mean... I'm kind of a bad ass and all, but last I checked, a lack of badassery wasn't a precondition for visiting Bahrain. Am I right? And yet, I feel as if anyone who gets denied entry to Bahrain must be doing something right. But does my tiny little voice, amplified solely by modern technological marvels, carry any weight at all? This got me onto a whole existentialist mind-track where I started questioning all of my actions since arriving in Doha.

Since having arrived back in Colorado, I've had plenty of time to drink green tea, sing Kumbaya, go skiing, and not shave my legs... It's given me plenty of time to become one with the Buddha and gag on clouds of Nag Champa incense. I've since solved all of the world's problems, naturally, and have new insight into why I would be a danger not just to the Bahraini government, but to any government or institution that doesn't like people who don't keep their mouths shut (I sincerely apologize for that sentence).

Reason #1: I see this world as impermanent

After spending a few hours doing yoga and "getting in touch with my inner goddess" (wherever the fuck she may be), I realized how much my body has deteriorated since being in Doha. Stretching out my joints I realized how brittle my own body really is... This is true for all of us, not just pudgy Maria. 

This body is but flesh and bone, and will stay and rot on this earth forever. That's some dark shit. But it's true. No matter what you try to do (unless you're cremated I suppose), all of those little atoms that you're made of will break down, decay, and rejoin with other atoms. Your body will cease to exist. That's the reality of it. But the mind, not just your mind, but the collective human consciousness will live on, as long as there are humans to think. 

I perceive this tangible world to be just as impermanent as our own bodies. That could make me dangerous for many reasons, especially for my unwillingness to abide by the rules of materiality. 

Reason #2: I don't keep my mouth shut

In grade school - up until I turned 12 and all hormonal hell broke loose - I was always that kid that would go "tattle" to the teacher. Yeah, I admit it: I was a little bitch. That spirit carried on, and I got busted/suspended/caught so many times growing up just because I didn't know when to pipe down.

It is for this reason that social media is a bad idea for people like me. I spare no details on my twitter feed. There are Youtube videos I wish I could edit the crap out of. These kinds of details and ramblings are probably what got me kicked out of Bahrain in the first place, but I don't know if I'll ever stop belting them out. What good is experience if it's not shared? Why should I censor my own true sentiments? Thanks to my rodeo-going, ice-cream eating, instant gratification getting American upbringing I'm a firm believer in the freedom of speech and the idiot's right to say anything stupid he so desires.

I'll continue to live by this. Keep it in mind. There are times you will wish you hadn't been listening while I abuse my First Amendment rights.

Reason #3: I call bullshit

If I see bullshit, I'll call it. I firmly believe in standing up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. It is a core belief of mine that we are all equal, and we are all the same, and I will not stand by to watch somebody trample over others out of self interest. I've gotten myself into trouble a number of times for pointing out general stupidity, although it never goes well for me. I have a deep belief that the exploitation of any human being is wrong, yet sadly this is not a belief I share with much of the rest of the world. I challenge you all to call the bullshit.

Reason #4: I see no differences between people

OK, yes, this is a bit cynical. But seriously! I get this more in Doha than in Colorado, but this is true of any place I believe. I honestly don't know why, but people are hierarchical in any social setting. I think this is a part of human nature (and I'm sure I do it too); a person's entire being should not be measured by their worldly status. This goes not only for race, gender, sex, and all those other PC terms, but also for wealth, education, past, etc. I see no difference between myself and the Nepali cleaners that wipe down my desk at QU every day. I do not discount the friendly Kenyan barista at my neighborhood cafe to be any less than myself; the same way I see intimidating intellectual bigwigs as my human equals.

Don't get me wrong, respect the differences between people - that's what makes us so damn interesting. But don't ever think that you are valued more or less than any other human beings on this earth. We are all equal, and that pisses some people off.

Reason #5: I want to stir the proverbial pot

I'm not exactly sure when it started, but whenever somebody would ask adolescent Maria what she wanted to do when she grew up, the response was "I'm going to save the world". That's still my answer today when anybody asks what I plan to do after I get my MA. The truth is, I have no idea what I want to do, just as long as I can do something somewhere that makes a difference to someone, I'll be happy.

If I have to stir a pot, I'll stir it with a vengeance.

It's for all of these reasons that I: Maria Hardman, could be perceived as dangerous to any government or institution that does not know how to deal with people that can't keep their mouths shut. As long as people can tolerate a crazy Muslim hippie from the mountains of Colorado transplanted to the modern Persian Gulf, all is well.

It's only when you try to shut off my bullhorn that I start to get really pissed.

Peace and love always <3

Little fish, big Doha

Happy New Year y'all!!

I know that " y'all " just throws 80% of people into outright confusion. Don't panic. Read on, dear viewer!

When you take a fish out of the water, does it only then learn the importance of the water in the first place? Rather, do you only ever come to understand something when you are taken out of the very same situation? There's a reason I left America... It was to get away from the sticky American mentality. I didn't realize how far away I'd gotten until I tried to be "American" again... I much prefer being - "whatever-the-fuck-I-am" - to trying to fill a certain stereotype. Maybe that's why I like to travel, to absorb different aspects of different people... The trick is to always be dynamic - never give yourself long enough to take on a personality other than your own.

I was taken out of my normal routine this week, and got to experience (if ever so briefly) another side of Doha. It's so hard for me not to be cynical of this side, since it's so.... Elitist. I know Doha's famous for its 5 star hotels and swanky, ritzy parties and hooplah and what not, but I honestly think I prefer smokey evenings in "Pakistan" (I decided my neighborhood has the ethnic makeup of Peshawar... Maybe with a few Filipinos thrown in for good measure) to an overpriced meal at a hotel restaurant on the beach. Don't forget that you're in Doha. Why come to Qatar if you'll spend your time holed up in a whole different universe? Just because those places serve alcohol... You'll cordon yourself off from ever experiencing the real thrust of the city? 

I'm starting to figure out Doha... I'm getting used to it; but these latest experiences totally threw a wrench in my understanding. It's a completely different world out on the West Bay Beach; a world most people in "Pakistan" would never ever see.

Something related to income level or priorities? Whether one prefers booze or ganja? Islamic morals or Christian ones? Really I don't know... I've said it before, but if you consider the population of Doha to all fall into some sort of spectrum (possibly related to income and country of origin), those on either end would never cross paths. While being lost and looking for the entrance to swanky restaurant that was my destination, I stopped and asked a construction worker which way to go (first in Arabic then English), and he shook his head saying he didn't know where the place was. It ended up being less than 100 yds away.

My boss once gave me a ride home and said: "wow, you really live... with the people," and honestly I wouldn't have it any other way.

Peace and love always <3