"All I know to be is a solider, for my culture"

Poet is fantasy

A
Poet
Is
A
Fantasy
A crazed derelict
Drunk on beauty
Irrepressible
Irresponsible

This is a myth of epic proportions
Stymying that would-be writer who likes to arrive
on-time
And
Indulging wo/man-child
Who’d be better off
At a 9-5

What if
It was not
The apple
But
A poem
A day
That kept
The doctor away
The crazy at bay

Whom then
would the poet be?

10/30

We Pray For You

On April 6, 2013 I held a dinner to honor my mother Amina Amatul Haqq nee Audrey Weeks. I composed the following as a closing prayer-poem, which I recited at the end of the night. Feel free to say Ameen/Amen at the end.

————-

In the early the morning hour,
when the night turns to day

we pray for you.

In the middle of the day,
between texts and emails
phone calls and meetings

we pray for you.

in that soft, sweet moment in afternoon
right before work’s almost over
and home-work begins again

we pray for you.

when the sky is full of
purples and plums
rouge and burnt orange
and the moon
reflects the light of sun

we pray for you.

in our silent thoughts
before sleep overtakes us

we pray for you.

and in the middle of the night
when only angels and sages
hold vigil
because God is most-near

we pray for you.

We pray for you

to know deep joy
that has no concern for time and space

to feel love
and give love
unbound

to be easy, ma
as the young folks say
ease in your stride
and that He
makes it easy, ma.

to be of faithful
mind
spirit
and body
cause we still got work to do.

Yet,
when the time of return comes
as it shall,
we pray

that your grave is filled with
the soft breezes and sweet scents of the garden
so wide
it has no end.

that your accounting is swift
so heavy is your scale of goods

that light shines from your fingertips
feet and face
that you are illuminated
gliding toward eternal bliss

that his blessed hand, salla Allahu alayh, offers you the coolness of Kauthar

that you are welcomed with the greetings
of the people of paradise
As Salaamu Alaikum
Peace be upon you.

and that

We are with you.

For this, we pray.

Ameen
Ameen
Ameen

(Salawat)

Those girls

I know why you want to be like
 Those girls

Want to be loved

Accepted

Acknowledged


Seen

I know why you want to be like
 Those girls

I too can be seduced by that craving


Consumed, if I’m not careful


You can be consumed

you’re not careful
you want to be like those girls
But you can’t
Because You see,
Those girls
Don’t exist.

08/30 poetry month

Today’s Pancakes

Almost perfect-ly
Round
and
Crispy
at the edges.
Sliced longways
then across
into perfect little
syrupy soaked
squares
of home.

The best part of my dissertation, Literally.

Acknowledgements

Like a hip hop awardee at the Grammys, first and foremost I would like to thank God. I thank Allah for making all things possible and ask Him to purify my intentions and accept my efforts. I thank my mother, Amina Amatul Haqq, for her many sacrifices and my grandmother, Carmen Weeks, for her many gifts. I thank my sister, Sharifa, and my Abuela Gertrude and other family and friends, far too many to name here, for always believing in my potential and teaching me the importance of this kind of work. I also thank my dear husband, Tahir Umar Abdullah, for being the one.

I offer sincere thanks to my advisor Carolyn Rouse. I continue to find her thoughtfulness and integrity remarkable. I will always be grateful for her encouragement and the way she challenged me to think more deeply, describe richly, and find my location in this discipline. I thank Lawrence Rosen for always “keeping it real,” Carol Greenhouse for listening and helping me discover complexities, and John J. Jackson, Jr. for always taking my ideas seriously. I also must acknowledge James Boon, Rena Lederman, Isabelle Clark-Decès, John Borneman, and João Biehl for challenging and enriching graduate seminars. Special thanks to Carol Zanca, Mo Lin Yee, and Gabriela Drinova for always being so gracious. And of course thanks go out to my fabulous cohort Charis Boutieri, Sami Hermez, and Erica Weiss for their intellectual fellowship and compassionate friendship—and for reviewing chapter drafts and fielding my writing anxieties. Outside of the anthropology department, I would like to especially thank Eddie Glaude, Cornell West, Melissa Harris-Perry, Daphne Brooks, Dean Karen Jackson-Weaver at Princeton University, and John Voll at Georgetown University, for their guidance and mentorship. Furthermore, I owe great thanks to Amina McCloud, Amina Wadud, Sulayman Nyang, Jon Yasin, Sherman Jackson, Amir Al-Islam, Zain Abdullah, and Jamillah Karim for modeling what it means to be black, Muslim, and an engaged scholar.

I also want to give a special shout out to an amazing group of colleague-mentor-friends including: Faedah Totah, Intisar Rabb, Tomiko Ballantyne, Larry Lyons, Zaheer Ali, Zareena Grewal, Hishaam Aidi, Maryam Griffin, Arshad Ali, Sohail Daulatizai and the entire MSWG crew, Nitasha Sharma, Junaid Rana, Hussein Rashid, Maurita Poole, Angela Ards, Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, Dawn-Elissa Fischer, H. Samy Alim, and Sylvia Chan-Malik.

This research has been financially supported by the Graduate School, the Center for African American Studies, and the Center for Arts and Policy Studies at Princeton University and the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I am deeply grateful to Clyde Woods, George Lipsitz, Gaye Theresa Johnson, Stephanie Batiste, and all the faculty and staff in the Department of Black Studies at UCSB for their interest and support of my work.

I will be forever indebted to the amazing individuals I encountered at IMAN and throughout the Chicagoland Muslim Community. Jazakum Allahu Khairan.

And to end where this all began: Thank you, Ms. Zora Neale Hurston.

They ask me why I love Brooklyn

O.S. (Original Sunni) Brooklyn Style

 

The scent of Egyptian musk

Makes me reminiscent/of

When we were kids/and

The masjid was the after-Jumah place to chill.

Where we played on its city-street corner

Only interrupted by the adhan/and

Trips to the store/for

Steak-n-take/and

Five-cent candy.

Where at ten

We played double-dutch by the sister’s entrance

But by thirteen traded in double-dutch/for

Obviously “dis” interested strolls past the brothers’ side.

When Eid was in prospect park/and

You probably missed the first prayer/because

Umi had been frying chicken since fajr,

But you looked good when you got there,

In your new outfit and shoes.

When you said Umi and Abi

Instead of mommy and daddy,

Shukran instead of thank you,

Used mishwak along with/not instead of

A toothbrush.

When McDonalds was halal.

When hijab meant rocking a bright red khimar

With your new red kicks.

When polygamy was more common, less frequent.

When your grandparents were non-Muslim/and

You loved them just the same.

Before Jilbab became fard,

Music haram,

And long pants sinful.

Before salafi, sunni, shi’i, sufi, wahabbi

Became oft-thrown terms.

Before presidential endorsements

And nightline specials.

Before being Muslim was the greatest crime our time.

Was a time and space in the world

Of a community

Who despite all our contradictions

And life’s hard knocks

WE knew who we were

We were Muslim

Proud

And Happy.

And outside the masjid

At 786 3^rd Ave

Brooklyn, NY, Dar El-Salaam

The children sang

Everywhere we go

Everywhere we go

People want to know

People want to know

Who we are

Who we are

Where we come from

Where we come from

What do we tell them?

What do we tell them?

We are the Muslims

The Mighty, Mighty, Muslims!

Fun with Poetry Day!: Requiem for a Job Talk

to all my people grinding this job season:

Requiem for a Job Talk

Tick Tock

Tick Tock

Trembling lip,

Sweaty brow.

 

Tick Tock

Tick Tock

One slide down,

Ten more to go

Tick Tock

Tick Tock

 

Data’s got its BACK!

So, Theory courageously slaps boundaries up-side the head

& Visuals chant a thousand words.

 

Tick Tock

Tick Tock

 

Appropriate applause?

 

Tick Tock

Tick Tock

 

Thought provoking query from the right.

Now a question from left field—

And one from the A-hole in the rear.

Tick Tock

Tick Tock

 

Bladder on verge of rebellion.

 

Tick Tock

Tick Tock

Time’s Up!

Limpy handshakes offer parting mercies

And mortification has been averted successfully!

Now,

 

(Cue Jay Z)

 

On to the next one

On to the next one

Some Thoughts and Questions (on Race, Class and Muslims)

I had the fortune of attending two events this summer, the 2nd Annual Community Life Forward conference in Houston and the Ta’leef Chicago Ramadan Class and Iftar. As an individual believer, one of the most striking quotes from CLF was by the pioneering Muslim musician Imam Wali Ali. He said something to the effect of “no one else in this world has these five fingertips” as a metaphor for the idea that each of us is endowed by God with a gift, or set of gifts, which we have obligation to share (this final point was also made during the Jummah Khutbah by Imam Saafir Rabb). I find this notion that we each have gifts and are obliged to share them with the world both conceptually compelling but also challenging — how do you acknowledge your personal gifts without succumbing to illusions of grandeur? Again, as an individual believer, at the Ta’leef event one the most striking quotes was the advice given by Ustadh Usama Canon that we all try “radical generosity” this Ramadan. The kind of generosity that gives from what you love and gives with a sort of self-less abandon. This kind of generosity that is available to all of us, haves and have nots, because, and this is my own reading here, it’s probably less about giving money but things much more valuable, and thus much more challenging to give, like time, love, compassion and patience.


As anthropologist on American Muslims, these events were also striking in terms of what they made me think of on a socio-cultural level. Both of these events seem to emerge from a desire to respond to the pronounced need, particularly among younger Muslims, for more diversity and inclusion which more established centers of Muslim life are lacking in someway. But what do we actually mean by diversity? Is diversity a room of Arabs and South Asians? Is diversity a room full of black people who are students of Imam Mohammad and descendants of the DAR? Most certainly, on one level that is. “Arab” and “South Asian” are regional/linguistic categories that inadequately subsume a whole lot of difference. Likewise, the ideological, historical and therefore (religious) experiential differences between WDM and DAR communities is pointed enough (even in the contemporary moment) to argue that bringing folks of those ilks in the same room is a moment of diversity and inclusion. Yet why do I think when many of us say “diversity”, we are often counting the number of black folks in the room? And at times white folks and at even fewer time Latin@s. And if there are sprinklings of these other folks is that what we mean by diversity? And is it possible that all these examples are diversity yet within our context, as Muslims in the 21 century US, all diversity is not equal, i.e some types of diversity are more meaningful that others. Meaning, for example, given the anti-black racism circulating within Muslim Arab American and South Asian American communities, then a room with critical masses of those three groups, black, Arab and South Asian, might be a more meaningful diversity than just a room of Arab Americans and South Asians. And perhaps the most meaning kind of diversity is having a room with critical masses of all kinds of American Muslims (black, white, Latin@, continental African, Arab, South Asian and so on) who engaging each other in a non-hierarchical shared space…

I also find that we tend to think of diversity primarily in terms of race, and secondarily in terms of gender, but what of class? In my own scholarship I am working to develop a more robust class analysis but on a community level there is a lot of classism and elitism that goes unrecognized and unchallenged…that is, of course, I suppose, if you find elitism a problem, I realize not all US Muslims do. Yet even as I rail against classism and struggle with my own evolving “pedigree”, I think there may need to be a distinction between elitism, as a kind of discrimination based on certain class standings and pedigree and responding to class identity in the here and now. You can usually find class in the way people dress, what cars they drive but also in their habits, what they are comfortable with and what they talk about and how they are spoken to, if the themes are, to put it coarsely, staying in college vs staying out of prison. I find this particularly interesting, when considering the topic of the the “relevance” of particular modes of Muslim practice and spiritual teaching. If a ministry (to borrow the term) tends to attract middle and upper middle class folks, some look at askance as if it is not relevant…but don’t bougie people need God too? And is it OK, for a particular effort to be class-based, to cater to and be relevant for a particular socio-economic class of Muslims, which can actually be racially diverse or do we ultimately want class diversity throughout our communities, particularly because, again, in our context (21st century USA) where race and class still tend to be a dyad, class diversity could be more meaningful….and is perhaps the most meaningful a community in which not only do people of different classes engage each other in a shared space but in which class distinctions become tangibly meaningless?

First Draft: Let the Ummah Say, Ameen.

And to the informants

here with us today,

Let the Ummah say, Ameen.

And to the informants

at Sunday’s Taleem,

Let the Ummah say, Ameen.

And to the informants

leading Thursday night halaqas

Let the Ummah say, Ameen.

And to the informants 

on the conference committee

Let the Ummah say, Ameen.

And to the informants

dishing out dates at sunset,

Let the Ummah say, Ameen.

And to the informants

members of MSA email lists,

Let the Ummah say, Ameen.

And to the informants

at recess

dusting off Ahmad’s kufi

laughing at Jamillah’s jokes

-tag, you’re it-

Let the Ummah say, Ameen.

And to the informants

choppin’ it up

over some

bean pie

shawarma

styrofoam cups filled with hot, sweet chai

Let the Ummah say, Ameen.

And to the informants

in the prayer line,

rubbing their foreheads against turbah,

at dhikr chanting

Allaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah-u!

Let the Ummah say

Ameen.