Cypress's blog

Promoted to the front page.

I have just spoken with a friend of mine who has converted to Ismailism (a long and arduous process, I might note) from Usuulii 12er Shi'ah.

The reason for this? She's transgender and queer and there is no breathing room. She was convinced of the truth of the practice of the Ismaili community and its progressive leadership and couldn't stand the suffering and rules-lawyering of the 12er, whom she likened to the fundy-Sunni in their focus on legalism and rulings (and often wild anti-semitism) in the face of Ismailism.

I'm writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month. Check it out at NaNoWriMo.org.

I'll give you my username if you contact me and I know you.

This means I may be writing more or less on this site... I'm not quite sure yet.

Also, yes. It's three am.

Promoted to the front page. Originally Posted on October 14th, 2008.

I am going to kick off my blogging here with something perhaps unusual for a Muslim site. I'm not going to talk about anything explicitly Muslim at all.

The Jesus Seminar was founded in the mid-80s by scholars of religion to make a first stab at understanding the Gospels from a scientific perspective: that is to say, as a text, how could it be teased out? As a person who rejected the divinity of Jesus, I was fasinated over the years as they teased out of the Gospels those things that were likely the words of the mad rabbi (as I think of him) as opposed to those of his later followers of varied socio-religious persuasions. Under the Jamesite, Pauline and other accretions were pithy teachings that were unlike anything encountered in texts of the time, truly revolutionary and often counterintuitive things that reached down and touched me.

Has anyone read Afdhere Jama's new book, Illegal Citizens? It piques my interest...

In the still dark predawn, when all sensible beings are sleeping, my brain is defiantly keeping me awake.

It's in these hours that I take refuge in recitation. Of all the things that Islam has, nothing sticks to my soul so well as basmala (a verb usefully coined in Arabic but as of yet without parallel in English).

It sucks to be awake, to know I'll be asleep during the day, to worry about things, but I can sing out "bismi l-lahi r-rahmaani r-rahiim" and it soothes me.

(I am working on my Arabic hard these days in the hopes that I can dive into more of the original Arabic of the Qur'an, because I am sick to death - to death! - of translations. Every one mocks my aesthetic tastes and linguistic sensibilities.)

Promoted to the front page

I am so sick and tired of being female and Muslim. I swear to God I cannot take it anymore. The things that grind me down are all inside the community. Do you know I was in a discussion online about funky hijabs today - I don't veil, but I wear scarves for privacy and, well, because I currently have a shaved head - like "what's the funkiest hijab you have?" I'll even link it: Hijab: What Kind Of Scarves Do You Favour?, Umm... colours, styles, ethnic origin.... I collect funky cloth pieces from around the world and use them in unexpected ways, like the giant, perfectly cylindrical turban I make out of a kuffiyyah.

Anyway, here in the Sister's page of a website, I naturally get trolled. By a man. Who cuts and pastes. IS THERE ANY MORE EVIL THING IN THE WORLD THAN CUT'N'PASTE LECTURES ON A MUSLIM FORUM BOARD? ASTIFIRAGHULLAAH! HARAAM HARAAM!