Comments on: perpetually dissatisfied

By: Mis Mouse Kuca House 2007/08/10

Mis Mouse Kuca House 2007/08/10 — Fri, 23 May 2008 06:06:52 +0000

[...] covered in this regard. Now if only my insurance company would recognize this**)Fathima presents perpetually dissatisfied posted at run.like the wind. Fathima reviews a Toronto photo exhibit that has returned to Toronto [...]

By: Yaser.org: Rumi phenomenon

Yaser.org: Rumi phenomenon — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 15:53:47 +0000

[...] more peaceful people? that context and critical thinking do not matter when it comes to poetry? (we talked a little about this before, but i think the issue of the use of poetry to co-opt engaged dialogue is pertinent [...]

By: Carnival of Islam in the West, 12th Edition « Samaha

Carnival of Islam in the West, 12th Edition « Samaha — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:00:38 +0000

[...] presents perpetually dissatisfied posted at run.like the wind. Fathima reviews a Toronto photo exhibit that has returned to Toronto [...]

By: fathima

fathima — Mon, 21 May 2007 18:21:50 +0000

So it looks like my reading list is now that much longer.

By: Zainab

Zainab — Sat, 19 May 2007 06:07:52 +0000

Fathima, neat, I’d need to ponder on that longer — some aspect/s of that still gnaws me.

Re. Arberry, I’m compelled to respond because he’s one of Rumi’s most trusted translators (the first, in fact, of the Mathnawi) with formidable academic-linguistic skills in both Farsi and Arabic, with which he translated not only Rumi, Hafez, Firdausi but also the Qur’an into what is a remarkably accurate trans. by/for a non-Muslim.

But, you may be right re. Orientalist inclinations on the part of ‘Koran’ users, Arberry included, because his translation was published sometime in the 1950s — well into the post-colonial, post-modernist lit. flying around.

…btw, an ancient copy I have of a Yusuf Ali trans. also uses ‘Koran’, and it anglicises/ christens all the Muslim names in the translation, forget transliteration — Yaqoub is Jacob :o

By: fathima

fathima — Sat, 19 May 2007 05:12:57 +0000

Zainab:
about political representation: i think a better example is the meme that started just after Bush’s re-election, when a whole lot of Americans took pictures of themselves wearing “I’m sorry” signs. i could appreciate the sentiment and the sense of impending doom that they wanted to distance themselves from, but maybe it was my essentially stiff-upper-lip nature that kicked in, but my first reaction was one of distaste. i’m not fond of such public displays of contrition.
less personally, i think there’s something very wrong with a system in which nearly half the (voting) population feels that it needs to publicly state a elected representative does not in fact represent them. it indicates an awareness on their part of the disconnect that i’m getting at – that people who call themselves representatives should not necessarily be accepted as such. additionally, it makes clear that there is something very wrong with the way we run our countries.
i mean, Harper does not represent me. i didn’t vote for him. but he is the country’s PM.
and finally, what does an apology like this achieve exactly? an apology is an intensely personal thing, something that it hurts to give and hurts to receive. i think rallies and other campaigns are better ways to express collective discontent publicly.

and about the misbah, i did not know those things. thanks for letting me know.
now i feel mean-spirited for dismissing Benari as casually as i did.

nomes: yeah, they mentioned his PhD and UWO. but i’m not particularly interested in learning about him. there are more important people to know, you know? i don’t want feed someone else’s ego against my will.

yaser: well, hello. it’s nice to know you’re still alive.
i align people who spell it Koran (“Coran” is new to me) with people who spell it Moslem and these are generally right-wingers or patronising liberals and i am not fond of either. and when Muslims have largely (please god don’t let me be wrong) spell it Quran, why should others not do the same? self-determination, right. Rawi has an interesting post on the matter, and i agree with him that there is nothing essentially wrong with the spellings and yes, you’re right about English perceptions of the letters k and q. But I do feel that most people – who are aware of the different spellings – who use “Koran” and “Moslem” do so because they aware of the Orientalism of the words and are interested in establishing their (perceived) superiority, at least linguistically.
(also i do not of this Chittick or this Arberry. please enlighten me.)

By: yaser

yaser — Fri, 18 May 2007 02:48:53 +0000

i don’t think there’s a problem with spelling the qur’an as ‘koran’ or even ‘coran.’ it was only recently that academia settled on a standardized system of transliteration for arabic. for many english speakers, there is no discernible difference between k and q like there is in arabic between kaf and the deep throaty qaf. in any case, many esteemed scholars, including william chittick, still prefer ‘koran’ as their spelling of choice. arberry did too.

By: nomes

nomes — Thu, 17 May 2007 04:49:10 +0000

Salim Mansour is an idiot, right-wing Orientalist. He’s also a professor of political science at UWO (I think), and a columnist for the Sun. I had an interesting exchange with him once, at UofT, where he ignored the import of my question to revert to Orientalist stereotypes and decry how Muslims “are not humans”. Hoorah.

By: Zainab

Zainab — Thu, 17 May 2007 04:23:11 +0000

Okay, so things I put in arrow brackets don’t show up either :-? obviously, I’ve a lot to learn ..

By: Zainab

Zainab — Thu, 17 May 2007 04:19:29 +0000

hmmm…Danke :)

Re. representation, acha, so you alone have the right to speak for yourself, as a Muslim. What about as a ‘Canadian’? Does, say a member you’ve elected to office, represent you?

Re. misbaha, my appah has one like that from Saudi/ UAE: white oval beads, with black sporadic, indented dots on them — I never figured what the dots were for, random design or ….., who knows.

As for the 99 names of Allah, yah, I wasn’t aware of that until recently, when my kids were learning the asma al-husna, and the co-teacher elaborated that the misbaha was specifically intended for this purpose, i.e., to glorify Allah with His 99 names, hence the perfect misbaha has exactly 99 beads or 33 :) again, who knows.