brotherdash.com

Spoken Soul CD

Check out the review of my album Spoken Soul by Zaufishan Iqbal. Zaufishan is an artist and writer based in the UK and hosts a top rated blog www.zaufishan.co.uk. She took some time out to review the album. Have a read.

Muslimah
by Brother Dash from the album Poetically Speaking

The cloak enveloped the breeze on a day made sunny by her complexion

A radiant kind of energy or perhaps synergy of mood and disposition

She possessed me
Enveloped me
Cradled me like an orphan babe
And then she caught my glance

Now I don’t know why I was afraid to say that it was her essence that gave her such a presence
That sparked such a desire
Not of flesh But of spirit

That longing for love
She reminded me of He
That blew life into She
That gave birth to the We
That soothes our troubled cries and I tried to avoid the eyes

But those eyes pierced the walls of my soul
She grabbed and immobilized me
Gently choked my jugular and peered deeply

“Oh my is that the universe I see in the iris of her soul?”

You see it was her essence that gave her such a presence

That reminded me of love
It was the flow of her gait
It was the way that she walked
It was the way that she talked
Even though her lips never parted

She was purifying water

And I so wanted to pray
Prostrate to her God
That created
That stated
Paradise was at her feet

I was captive to her beauty
And I don’t mean she was pretty
Convinced of my own conviction
She challenged my very existence
And my ego ran for cover

Was it the Sun that warmed the wind that kissed my cheeks?
Or was it the breadth of her aura
A majestic, feminine kind of Je ne sais quoi

My soul quaked
My heart ached
Language is an inadequate conveyor
She never said a word
Her existence spoke volumes
And in this moment demanded a reply
I was bursting to ask the question
Struggling, bumbling, fumbling for the appropriate time
Hyperventalaic starts and stops to the question
Fear and anticipation gripping my emotion and my right index finger
And in the midst of this comical spasm
This flotsam, jetsam to and fro
She must have heard the words beg from my soul

And with the softness of a whisper and an almost sweet serenade

She said to me simply…Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

“I’m just a Muslimah”

©2003 Brother Dash

Muslimah by Brother Dash is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.brotherdash.com.

Part 1 With Shaykh Abdallah Adhami

We have a conversation with Shaykh Abdallah Adhami, founder and director of Sakeenah, Inc. on these are other issues related to culture and identity in the West. The Chaipod was a series of podcasts I produced. We had 6 episodes. This first episode deals with culture, identity and Islam. As Muslim converts and 2nd generation children of Arab and South Asian immigrants forge their own Muslim identities in the West you will inevitably run into clashes, both real and perceived, between what Islam says and what America or Great Britain says.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was more than a gifted singer, dancer and beatboxer…yes beatboxer (youtube it…you’ll be amazed). Michael was more than simply a great artist…greater than any of his peers as far as a complete package (sorry Prince…you were the more gifted musician than Michael but not the more gifted complete package). If that was all Michael was then that would be enough for the world…and for many that is perhaps their connection. But I can tell you that as a young Black boy from Brooklyn, NY growing up in the early 80’s he was more than that to me. Michael was the first artist that made everyone say “I See Black People”.

You see Michael was the first artist that made White people want to actually BE a Black man and not simply admire his talent. Sure you had the great Nat King Cole, Ray Charles, James Brown, Stevie Wonder and a host of other Motown greats. Yes you had Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, the likes of Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Cosby and even the social behemoths Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm “El Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz” X. But none of them made Non-Black people want to BE this Black man from the humble streets of Gary, Indiana. None of them had Russian Women, Pakistani Men, Japanese teenagers AND straight thugged out Brownsville, Brooklyn Project Black brothers pretending to be him in the mirror. I bet even Ronald Reagan tried to moonwalk at least once.

Michael Jackson was the first Black artist to breakthrough MTV’s racism. In the 80’s before MTV’s desire for money superceded their racism by giving the greenlight to Yo MTV Raps they would never play music videos featuring Black artists. But even they could not ignore the dynamic freight train with the dazzling smile, calm demeanor and electrifying stage presence. So this is what I mean when I say “I See Black People”. To MTV Black Americans were like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (google it youngins). But Michael made you stand and recognize. Michael became BIGGER than the BIGGEST Rock star to that point Elvis Presley. And while he was not outwardly political he never denied his Blackness and even stated so emphatically during the controversy over his lightened skin. “I AM an African-American!” he said in a televised interview. Before Oprah and Obama there was Michael Jackson.

This leads me to my conclusion regarding The Blessing of Death For the Living. What I mean is that Michael’s sudden death is something we can use as an opportunity to remember death and life. All of us will die. None of us know when we will die and most of us will wish we had “more time”. But we have the time now. The time to think about what comes after this life. The time to think about who created us. The time to think about what the Creator made us for in the first place. Ultimately why are we here? Yes I loved Michael Jackson just like most of you. And even with what I said about the social implications of his stardom it came at a great great cost to himself, his family and even to humanity in a sense because it contributed to our culture of celebrity. The Quran, and I’m sure other holy books, talks about how temporary this world is and how it is but a fleeting moment. Did Michael think that at 25 he was already a middle aged man? But that could be you…could be me. I may die at 50 or 60. I may die tonight which means I was middle aged when I was a teenager. But we don’t think about that. Even if you live to be 100 or you’re some sort of genetic freak and live to be 130 is that really a long time? No it isn’t. Poof…gone. Now what? So what are you doing with your life and is it really just play, sport, do whatever…then what?

What I think about with Michael Jackson was how even the “King” of Pop was never at the top forever even in this life’s definition of forever. Michael became popular in the late 60’s and had an unprecedented run into the mid 1990’s even. He had 30 years of pop culture relevance with 20 of those years probably at #1 icon status. Not even Elvis had that. And he never lost his fame. But even his iconic status was temporary. He was supplanted by other singers. The world changed. We will no longer have Madonna’s and Michael’s and Whitney’s or Celine Dion’s. Those monumental iconic stars have waned. No one will ever sell 25 million Thriller albums again. EVER! Look how temporary even the temporary life we are living is. So it makes me think about the permanence of eternity. Michael’s death can be a blessing for the living. And Michael was a very spiritual person. I would like to think that Michael would want for us to remember our own mortality and strengthen our connection to The Creator as his lasting legacy as opposed to our favorite song of his. And with that I say “Inna lilahi wa inna ilayhi raj’iun” We are from God and it is to God that we return.

-Brother Dash

Marriage Attitudes

An oft quoted saying from the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, is “Marriage is half of the religion”. One of the main points that Muslims take from the hadith that mentions this is how important marriage is for a person of faith. It is one of the most important decisions you will ever make in your life so marriage being ‘half of one’s religion’ is not hyperbole at all. Another hadith that is not quoted as often relates to who one should marry. The Prophet Muhammad was asked this question and he responded by saying that marrying someone for their piety is best (he mentioned that you can marry for other reasons as well but that piety was best). But in a complex world filled with many divisions on race, class, gender, ethnicity, language and culture the reality often times is in contradiction with the ideal. Moreover we must consider how we are socialized as far as ideas and images we have regarding marriage. While there are have been many lectures and several books on marriage in Islam it is rare to have frank and open discussions on how race and culture affect our decisions on who to marry. While certain ahadith are quoted, such as the ones above, what happens when it comes to a real decision? What do Muslims really think? I recently conducted two polls on my website, www.brotherdash.com, on marriage. The results are quite interesting.

The first poll conducted in the Spring of 2008 asked respondents if they would marry someone of another race or ethnicity. The responses are below:

Yes, Absolutely 50%
Probably Yes 21.2%
Yes, but not over my parent’s objections 16.9%
Perhaps 6.8% (removed this option in 2nd poll)
Probably not 3.4%
No way absolutely no 1.7%

The second poll conducted in the Summer of 2008 asked a more specific question and of females only. Would you marry an African-American or Afro-Carribean brother? The results are below:

Yes, Absolutely 52.5%
Probably Yes 9.3%
Yes, but not against my parent’s wishes 16.1%
Probably Not 12.7%
No, Absolutely Not 9.3%

There were exactly 118 Respondents for each poll.

Anecdotally speaking many in the African-American community have suspected that the issue of “Blackness” is much more significant in marriage than we may pay lip service to. Many African-American Men have often complained amongst each other that Arab and South Asian Muslims would object to their daughters marrying them based on nothing but race not on Islamic knowledge nor perceived spirituality.

While no scientific studies have ever been conducted to confirm or reject this perception the data from the polls lends credence to these prevailing attitudes. What do the polls say when we compare them side by side? While we notice that there is some displeasure amongst a minority of Muslims regarding marriage outside of one’s culture or race it is much more noticeable when the race is specified to African-Americans and Afro-Caribbeans. Conversely however in both polls those who appear to have no concern over marrying outside of perceived race and culture are consistent whether the person is African-American or not. 53% would marry outside of their race/culture when race is unspecified and 50% would do so when African-American is specified. This is fairly close. You also notice this consistency when the respondent states that they would marry outside of their race as long as it was not against parental desire. But there is a glaring difference amongst the “probably nots”, and “absolutely nots.” The difference is huge. Only 5% of respondents said that they would probably not or absolutely not marry someone outside of their race in the 1st poll where race is UNSPECIFIED. But 22% said that they would probably not or absolutely not when the race is specified to marrying an African-American. What the data suggests is that when it comes to marrying a Black man there is not much middle ground and there is much more polarization around the issue. You are either very much for it or very much against it when it comes to “Blackness”.

There is some insight into the respondent’s feelings however. Some of the “no” respondents did send private emails and two of them were actually Women of African and Afro-Caribbean descent themselves. One of the Women discussed how she had a bad marriage with an African-American brother and thus would not marry another. The other respondent said that she was basing her “no” decision on what she has seen in her own personal experience in the community.

I believe that the community would find it to be interesting to have a more comprehensive forum surrounding relationships and gender attitudes amongst Muslims. On the more “pro” side many Women responded that what was most important to them was the brother’s faith, personality, drive or ambition. These are characteristics that are fairly universal desirable qualities in a mate. With such a difference between “no” responses where 5% said “no” with race unspecified (thus leaving the person to pick any race/ethnicity in their mind) and 22% said “no” when forced to pick African-American it begs to ask the question as to why this is not being discussed more in the Muslim community.

Brother Dash