Intro and Intention

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem
In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful

I'm a Muslimah activist, lecturer, writer and mother of six. I designed this blog as a way to express the things I wish all Westerners knew about Islam and Muslims.

When I went to Syria for the first time in 1992 my mom was terrified. "How can you even think about going there? There's violence and danger and political kidnappings...!" Then I arrived in Damascus my mother-in-law said, "How can you live in the States? It's so dangerous. There are gangs and drugs and AIDS..." Such is the power of the media. To create monsters out of completely ordinary people and places..

In a time of war that effort goes into overdrive. Especially when it's a "pre-emptive" war which was sold to the American people on false pretenses. The "enemy" has to be painted in the scariest possible light in order to keep people afraid enough to put up with the injustice and immorality of the operation.

So it becomes easy for regular people to jump on the demonizing bandwagon and dwell on the "otherness" of an entire group of people. And Muslims are partly to blame because we haven't been active or vocal or visible enough in our communities. Unfortunately, when 9-11 occured most people had a void in their brains where information about Islam and Muslims should have been. That made it easy for a president with an agenda to come in and paint images of scary bearded terrorists who "don't value life the way we do" lurking around every corner and in every mosque. But the reality of Islam and the point of view of the average Muslim is very far removed from what is portrayed by the media and the current administration. I hope to give people a glimpse of it.

Please don't hesitate to leave your comments. Thanks.