the need for muslim foster parents

How can we complain if we’re not stepping up to the plate to take care of our own children?

Christian foster mother struck off after Muslim girl converts:

The woman has been banned by her local council for failing to prevent the teenager from getting baptised, even though the girl was 16 and made up her own mind to change religion.

The carer, a churchgoer in her 50s who has fostered more than 80 children, has now been forced to move out of her home.

She has lost the farmhouse she rented to look after vulnerable teenagers, due to the loss of income.

From the net, a 2002 article by Catherine England, published in Aziza magazine.  Read it.

We get calls for muslim (foster) families, for muslim children…and we can’t place them.  When everyone says no, that means they are placed where ever the state can place them.  That will be within a culture and a religion that is foreign to them.  Every day they are within a non muslim home diminishes their religion identity.

- Molly Dagget, MSW, Lutheran Social Services

Community needs Muslim foster homes

Foster parenting is when an individual is interested in providing stability for a child who has been removed from the care of his or her family due to a situation in which the biological parents are no longer able to care of the child. According to experts, this is many times due to abuse or neglect.

When a child is taken out of the home, the first option is for relatives to care for them, Mohmand-Farhad said.

In the case of Muslim children, if that’s not possible, the agency tries to place them with a Muslim family in the community.

“But if no one steps forward, then the child is placed with whoever can take them,” she said. “In foster care, no religion is supposed to be imposed on the children, but it’s still always nice to have your own religion or your own culture available to you.”

Shaikh Yassir Fazaga, imam and religious director at the Orange County Islamic Foundation in Mission Viejo, Calif., said the Muslim community is obliged to care for foster children.

“This is a communal obligation,” he said. “If enough individuals have done it, than the community as a whole fulfills the obligation. But if we don’t have enough foster parents, then as a community, we have to re-evaluate the situation.”

Foster Care Link – organization for fostering muslim kids in the UK

The First Little Mosque on the Prairie

I’m a red, white and blue muslim, midwest born and raised.  My family first came to this country in the early 19th century, and I had a many times great grandfather who died in the civil war.  Subsequent generations faught in the first and second world wars.  In case you couldn’t tell, I’m an american muslim who’s obsessed with muslims in america.

Admitedly, I don’t know much about Islam in our neighbor to the north.  I know there are lots of muslims in TO (which apparently is Toronto, or so I gather from assorted blog postings).  And that they put out Little Mosque on the Prairie.  And that they have awesome conferences and Sh. Faraz lives there.

As such, I was delighted to stumble upon this article about Islam in Canada – The First Little Mosque on the Prairie.  And I was tickled pink by the illustration.  Snowmen making sajdah, awesomeness (even if their arms aren’t in the right position)!  *steals it for my photobucket*

 The article is written by the descendant of an earlier muslim immigrants.  The experience seems quite different from that of more recent immigrants, at least from what I’ve observed.  Immigrant and second generation muslims cling to their religion as well as their culture.  But then again, maybe that’s because I’m active in the muslim community, and muslim immigrants who “assimilate” by changing their names and drinking beer aren’t frequent mosque attendees. 

It was a tiny pioneer community founded amid a small but growing city. As a result, the emphasis was on getting along and fitting in. Over time, alcohol was consumed by many, if not most; the salaat, the prayers said five times daily, were often ignored. In several homes, Christmas trees were trimmed, Easter egg hunts were organized, and Halloween was celebrated. Friendships between Arabs and Jews were common. The odd intercultural business relationship resulted, and members of Edmonton’s comparably small Jewish community helped fund the Al Rashid Mosque.

…

Still, some traditions endured. While halal butchers were practically unheard of, the prohibition against eating pork was widely observed by Muslims, though certainly not in every home. Once, when my grandmother was visiting, she encountered something in our kitchen that would make any contemporary cleric’s blood curdle.

“Bobby!” she shouted to my father. “There’s a big ham in your refrigerator!”

My dad, ever the dutiful son, sauntered over. He opened the fridge door and looked inside, then furrowed his brow. “That’s not a big ham, Mother,” he said, closing the door.

“Bobby, don’t lie, ya haram. I saw it with my own eyes.”My father reopened the door. “Oh, that,” he said. “That’s a little ham.”

…

Is there a new Canadianized Islam? No. Clearly there are several, each a natural outgrowth of time and circumstance. There are the Ismailis, the followers of the Aga Khan, a well-integrated and influential community of about 75,000 that has produced a disproportionate number of high-profile leaders, such as former Ballard Power Systems chair Firoz Rasul and Liberal senator Mobina Jaffer. There are the gay Muslims of groups such as Salaam, whose founder, El-Farouk Khaki, ran as the ndp candidate in the last Toronto Centre by-election and lost to Bob Rae. There are the secular Muslims, some of whom see evidence of “sharia creep” around every turn. There are the traditionalists, who harbour a culture-bound and often narrow view of who is a Muslim. There is an assertive new generation, Canadian born yet observant, both a part of and apart from the “dominant” culture.

And then there is us, the descendants of the first Islamic wave. For some, I am a cautionary tale, evidence of what can happen to Muslims in Canada when the bonds of faith are allowed to fray. But they can rest easier knowing I am largely a charlatan. Although my father considered himself a Muslim, he wasn’t particularly observant, and we, his children, were raised without religion. I am a Muslim in about the same way as Barack Obama is: by bloodline at most. It was only as “Arab” became conflated with “Muslim,” and “Muslim” with “terror” that I found myself identifying with a people and a faith with which I thought I had little in common.

urban frontier: karachi

NPR has started a series highlighting growing urban centers.  This week is Karachi.  While I haven’t heard any mention of Islam (granted, I only heard the development story this morning and skimmed the rest online), there is a hidden ghost of religion in the story, as the folks at GetReligion would say.

This morning’s story spoke of gulf investors looking to pour their mega bucks into development projects in Karachi – condos on the sea, gulf courses, the whole 9 yards.  It also mentioned that gangsters threatened to kill Amber Alibhai’s family if she didn’t stop her crusade, er jihad against development for the rich at the expense of the poor.

Where is religion in this story?  Pakistan is a muslim country.  Ergo, most of the players here are probably muslim.  How is it that our ummah has so lost sight of our humble beginnings among the poor of Mecca that we’re rushing to build luxury developments while our brothers and sisters are without electricity and clean water?  Where is the transformative power of the deen that the early generations experienced?  Granted, we all can’t be Abu Bakr (ra), giving all our wealth to the cause of Islam.   But where are the development projects for the poor coming from these rich gulf investors?  Do they exisit?  That’s something to find out.

saudis and the last egyptian bellydancer

From Newsweek:

At the Grand Hyatt Cairo, a mile upstream along the Nile, the five-star hotel’s Saudi owner banned alcohol as of May 1 and ostentatiously ordered its $1.4 million inventory of booze flushed down the drains. “A hotel in Egypt without alcohol is like a beach without a sea,” says Aly Mourad, chairman of Studio Masr, the country’s oldest film outfit.

Although I rarely have a chance to say this, I give a reserved bravo to these Saudi investors.  Imagine a hotel in a predominantly muslim country, owned and operated by muslims, not selling alcohol.  It’s sacrilige is what it is.

Egyptians deplore what they call the Saudization of their culture

Although I’ll have to check back to get an exact quote from my inhouse egyptian, I’m calling bs on this one.  Perhaps some egyptians deplore this, but not all.   I know the husband talks glowingly of his year in Saudi Arabia, so I don’t really see him deploring this.

There are two ways egypt could be saudizied:

1. Their “version” of Islam is funded up the wazoo, drowning out native interpretations of the religion and stifling a more “traditional” (aka madhab based) version of Islam.  This I wold give a thumbs down to.  I would assume it’s been going on for decades already, just as it has been in the rest of the muslim world.

2. And/or they could take the business approach, as the Grand Hyatt owner did, and encourage halal business ventures.  I give this two thumbs way up.

Also, the article is completely ignoring the effect non-native dancers are having on the egyptian bellydance scence.  From my understanding, it’s pretty much dominated by russians.

Blogging about Palestine

on the blogs I read

Climbing Walls – an American Muslimah living in Palestine, her whole blog is chock full of posts on Palestine.  More recent posts include 1000 Year Mosques destroyed in wake of the Nakba and Al Jazera reports on Palestinians.  *added 9:36 am* Her blog about Palestine day post is up – Judaizing East Jerusalem

Southern Muslimah blogs about her Mother-in-Law’s experience in the nakba

The Muslimah links to a post her husband wrote about his grandmother and her ceaseless dhikr

*added at noon*  Writeous Sister writes about Genocide by any other name in Palestine and of Native Americans

*added at 12:30*  A Mother in Gaza writes about the cyber terrorism attack against Palestinian bloggers.   The rest of her blog is a good read for today as well.

More to be added as I continue my daily blog stroll inshaAllah

*added at 9:36 am*

Personal accounts always tug at my heart strings the most.  I can still remember the exact moment of my awakening to the situation in Palestine.  Hanan Ashwari came to speak at my university.  During the Q&A period, an old man got up, on the brink of tears.  He spoke about wanting to to to his childhood home, currently located in Israel, to be buried with his family.  He hadn’t been back since he was expelled decades earlier.  And he wouldn’t be allowed to go back to die.  I get a lump in my throat just remembering it now.

look into my eyes

If Americans Knew - what every american needs to know about Israel

Remember these Children

Since September 2000

982 Palestinian Children

and

119 Israeli Children

have been killed

 Innaa lillaahi wa innaa ilayhi raaji'oon

to God we belong and to Him is our return

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/3P12aqVeZkQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Ohh let's not cry tonight I promise you one day is through
Ohh my brothers! Ohh my sisters!
Ooh shine a light for every soul that ain't with us no more
Ohh my brothers! Ohh my sisters!

Alternative Energy

NPR has recently featured two stories about muslims working in an environmentally friendly manner in two very different ways.

 First, there is a story on the group Solar Cities in Cairo, who are devoloping solar water heaters at the grass roots level for inhabitants of medieval Cairo.  Not only are they tackling environmental issues, they’re also doing interfaith work as well.  Muslims and Christians make up the organization, and they serve both communities.

 And his young team says that fighting over religion, politics, class and culture wastes time in an urgent period of environmental upheaval.

“If we’re still thinking Christian, Muslim, Christian, Muslim, we will never move and we will stay in our place. We’ll never do anything,” Fathy says.

Second, we have Abu Dhabi using some of it’s enormous oil wealth to build the first carbon neurtral city.

The project, called Masdar City, will burn no gas or oil, so its contribution to greenhouse gases will be minimal. Masdar is the centerpiece of emirate Abu Dhabi’s plans to get into the renewable energy market, a hedge against the day its oil wells run dry.

Two groups of muslims working towards a healthier planet, one from the grassroots, one from the top down.  inshaAllah more members of our ummah will wake up and take part in the green revolution.

losing weight while others starve

MashaAllah, Allah (swt) has blessed me with a roof over my head and food on the table.  Unfortunately, I’m not too good at managing my intake of food, which has lead to a host of health problems.  I’ve been struggling with my eating and exercise habits for 2 years without sucess, but inshaAllah I’m on the right path now.  I’m writing down everything I eat, dedicating myself to exercise, and not letting my laziness overwhelm me.  Oh, and it also doesn’t hurt that the husband has bribed me…if I lose 20 pounds by my birthday in September, he’ll buy me a cat, huzzah!

To that end, I’m a member of Sparkpeople, where there’s a muslim sister support group.  Today, a sister posted a thought provoking question

Does anyone sees the irony of us trying to lose weight and eat less, when there’s a major, worldwide food shortage going on?

The price of the whole wheat pita bread the husband adores went up 50 cents since we last bought it 2 weeks ago, but that’s nothing compared to the jump of prices people are facing across the world.  The husband is originally from Mahalla el-Kubra, home of the recent strikes/food riots, where food prices have doubled.

Allah (swt) tests us all in different ways.  For my in laws, they struggle with too little food that costs too much.  For me here in the US, I struggle with too much food that, despite the recent increases, is still very affordable.

Wouldn’t it be great if we thanked Allah (swt) when we succeed in our struggles?  And what better way to thank Him right now than to give sadaqah to those who are also struggling. 

I’m going to pledge $x for each pound I lose to Islamic Relief’s Global Food Crisis Campaign, and I invite anyone else out struggling to lose weight to do the same.

preserving our history

As a child, family vacations consisted of each child carefully packing a box of books and colored pencils, my mom baking weeks worth of almond chocolate chip muffins and everyone piling into the family van for a 3 week road trip to some scenic and/or historic american destination.  On these family vacations, I developed a great love of history and it’s preservation.  Walking the battlefields at Yorktown and Gettysburg, viewing the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’s stovepipe hat, following the Oregon Trail westward, earning countless junior ranger badges, american history came alive.  History wasn’t simply something printed on the pages of textbooks.  No, it was something to touch, to see, to experience, to live.   I feel my life is fuller having experienced the history of my country.  I better understand my country, and what it means to be an american.

Imagine my disapointment then, when I first visited the Great Pyramids of Giza and found it was one big tourist trap.  Certainly, there were some highlights, such as the solar barque preservation building, but mostly, it was a bunch of ducking and avoiding men and boys trying to show you secret hidden chambers or get you to overpay for a ride on a poor, mangy camel.  Later trips to historic mosques like al Azhar were mared by janitors demanding enormous amounts of baqsheesh for special tours to places we could have gone to on our own.

But, at least the pyramids and these mosques were still there.  Muslim history, OUR history, has been steadily destroyed right under our very noses by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for decades.  Want to follow in the Prophet’s (saws) footsteps?  Good luck trying to find them.

Is the danger of grave worship and bida so dangerous that we must wipe our history from the face of the earth?  Should not future generations be able to visit these places where the blessed Prophet (saws) and his companions walked, to touch, to see, to experience, to live?  Companions of the Prophet (saws) strove to walk in the Prophet’s footsteps, literally.  They loved him so much that they followed him physically, with their bodies, as well as in their hearts.

Should not muslims today be allowed these same opportunities?  Do we not love the Prophet (saws) and want to imitate him as his companions did?  Cannot these brushes with our history increase our love for the Prophet (saws) and his sunnah, help us to better understand who we are, where we came from, and what it means to be a muslim?

Now, that rant aside, via 13 Martyrs, there is some good news:

The Supreme Council for Tourism plans to open a number of museums across the country including an Islamic museum in Makkah, a Qur’an museum in Madinah and a major one in Jeddah.

It is a very welcome development. Awareness both abroad and at home of the country’s heritage and history ranges, with one or two notable exceptions, from poor to abysmal. The consequences of that are seen in the way historic sites have been left to rot or destroyed altogether to make way for the new — with no concern whatsoever for what is being lost. For the past 40 years or so, the past has been studiously ignored. It was perhaps understandable in the rush for development.

Thank God I…

…learned about Islam before I met muslims.  It’s a phrase that has become popular among some converts in recent years, and this weekend, it was more evident to me than it has been in a long long time.  I just celebrated another year as a muslim last week, and sometimes, it seems like nothing has changed.

When I began to investigate Islam, I ordered a Quran from half.com.  I picked another up from the local new age store in my town.  I got another free from the Saudi Embassy, and rescued two from the “books we wanted to sell back but the bookstore wouldn’t take them” box at the university bookstore.  I was on a spiritual quest, and knowing some muslims on a social level at school led me to include islam in my search.  I was picking up sacred texts from other religions as well, but there was something unexplainable in the Qur’an that kept leading me back to it, compelling me to aquire as many as I could find.

I branched out, checking out every book on Islam that the university library had to offer.  Farid Esack’s On Being Muslim had a profound impact on me.   I read through every article on the Modern Religion and Islam for Today.

Oh, I interacted with muslims too, mainly online.  But the main push towards my embrace of Islam came not through my conversations with them, but instead came from my reading of the Qur’an.  Here was what I had been looking for.  I lost faith in Christianity after I studied the history of biblical composition my freshman year of college.  I could no longer hold that collection of books as God inspired.  They’d been messed with too much, disperate pieces taken and mashed together, books chosen by a council of men, rather than something given by the son of God. 

In my search, I wanted a text that was revelation, something that was from God and that had been preserved.  I found that in the Qur’an.  Here God had revealed a text to a man who, I would later find, set an excellent example for man’s conduct with one another, with God and with the earth.  That text was memorized and passed down, perfectly preserved until this very day.   Alhamdulilah, thanks be to God, I had found my path!

After I converted, it was a few more months before I had an opportunity to interact with muslims in the real world.  I transfered schools, and while at the summer orientation, I plucked up the courage to visit the islamic center near campus.  I attempted to put a scarf on, akwardly, and walked through the front door.  big.  mistake.  A big burly man with a bushy beard rushed towards me, arms waving, sisters through the back, sisters through the back!

I stumbled out the door, tears clouding my vision.  I made my way around to the back, only to find the sisters door locked.  I sat dejected next to the door until a woman came up and punched in the code – without saying a word to me.  I entered after her, hastily prayed zuhr and got the heck out of dodge.

I’d like to say that this was an isolated incident and that my experiences with muslims from then on only helped to strengthen my iman and help me to learn the deen.  Alas, it was not to be.  Although I’ve had stints of activity in the muslim community, for the most part it’s just been me, my books and the internet.   Oh, and the husband :)

This past Saturday, a local masjid had it’s grand opening, a whole day of lectures with 20 imams and sheikhs.  The husband and I went about halfway through the day.  I was reluctant to go, as I’d been to the masjid a few months earlier and wasn’t a fan of the sisters’ accomidations – a tiny room in the back, accessable only by going around the back and taking off your shoes in a garage.   Despite my misgivings, I bucked up and went.  MashaAllah, it was both a mistake and a blessing.  Sisters were packed wall to wall, talking and yelling at each other across the room.  I tried to make my way to be near a speaker, but it was hopeless.  I couldn’t hear a word of the lecture.  Some sisters were trying to quiet the others by hssst-ing at them.  Eventually, I got so frustrated, I got up and shouted, sisters, please, please be quiet so we can hear!  Didn’t work.  I left, dejected once more.

I called the husband and told him I was going to sit in the car and wait until he was done eating so we could leave, which I did.  Alhamduililah for my ipod and Sh. Hamza lectures.  At least my time wouldn’t be a total waste.  Just as I settle in, what to I see out my window?  A small somali child, running bare foot up the middle of the road and almost getting run over by a car!  I leapt out of the car and tried to call the child to me, but he ran right past.  I hurried after him (not an easy thing to do in a skirt and clogs), and eventually coaxed him into my arms.  Meanwhile, a guy at the laundrymat had seen the kid run by and had called the police.  I knew the kid was from the mosque, so I sent several sisters who walked by to find his mother while we waited.  5 minutes pass…no one came.  10 minutes pass…no mom.  15 minutes…the policewoman arrives.  I explain that I think I know where the child came from and she says that she’ll walk us over to the mosque to find the child’s mom.

So off we go, child drooling fruit juice all over my shirt, a non muslim man carrying his laundry and a police woman.  As I enter the sister’s section, someone snatches the child from me and runs inside without a word.  Umm, hello?  Don’t you want to know why I have this child?  No thank you?  I ran in after the sister and told her that her brother (still no mom to be found) had almost been run over and that she needs to watch him more carefully.  She looks at me blankly and slips away. 

Now I turn to the brothers doing security outside the masjid and try to explain what had happened and that could they please watch for any children escaping outside?  What did I get?  Yelled at, that’s what.  Dude, I know the sisters need to watch their kids, all I’m asking is that since you’re out here, please just watch for kids, since this one obviously slipped past you and almost became a road pancake.

At this point, I return to the car and call the husband.  The tears begin to flow and he dashes out to find out what happened.  Blubbering, I tell him the story, and he stalks back to the masjid.  A few minutes later he’s back, with the imam of the masjid in tow.  The imam apologizes for the guard’s rude behavior and begs me not to judge the masjid by this one incident.  I try to smile and tell him that inshaAllah I’ll come to another event in the future.

But, deep inside, I know that it will be a long time before that happens.  I don’t blame this masjid.  It’s not their fault.  It’s a general disease infecting our ummah.  Thank God I found Islam before I found muslims.  I can’t imagine if I was a non muslim and had gone to the mosque on Saturday to learn about Islam.  I would have booked it out of there so fast and probably never looked back.  I can’t imagine what the non muslim man who called the police when he saw the child running down the road must think about muslims and Islam.  I know what some non muslims think when they see muslims rioting in the street, burning embassies and commiting acts of terrorism.   

Alhamduililah I found the Messenger of Allah (swt) before I found those who claim to follow his Sunnah.  Thank God I have the life of the beloved Meseenger (saws) to look to when I need a role model in my faith.

Thank God I found the Allah (swt) before I found those who claim to follow Him (swt).  Who knows what I would be now if that had happened?