Just realized that there were several comments caught in the spam guard and want to thank you all for your support and encouragement. We’re just a few weeks into promoting the project and already it has been a great experience to find and learn about so many different on goings among the artsy leg of the ummah. We’re getting very excited about this project–please keep the suggestions and support coming!
triple threat by Sumayyah Talibah
triple threat
are you talking to me?
with that excuse me please
pointing to the back of the line
where I’m expected to wait
for Hell to freeze over
and over I ask you
what did I do
to be so black and blue
that my color stands for weakness
evil and negativity
ignorance and mis-education
I look at you and feel
an odd vibration
humming in my teeth
hearing you state that my future is bleak
because
I’m always second-guessed
‘cuz my sex stands for oppressed
even though I valiantly
seek to downplay my femininity
giving you reason to castigate me
treat me like broken and worthless propertyI see you look at me and freeze
an icy gleam in your eye
mumbling incoherently
like common sense has fled
as you stutter and wonder
what’s that thing on my head?
checking me for weapons
as if a rocket launcher could fit in my purse
you spit out Allahu Akbar
like it’s a curse
mocking my religion
questioning my decision
separating my family
causing unnecessary division
go back to where I came from?
I’m only 20 miles from homeover and over
I ask you
what did I do
to be so black and red
and white and blue
Different Ways to Pray BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
There was the method of kneeling,a fine method, if you lived in a countrywhere stones were smooth.The women dreamed wistfully of bleached courtyards,hidden corners where knee fit rock.Their prayers were weathered rib bones,small calcium words uttered in sequence,as if this shedding of syllables could somehowfuse them to the sky.
There were the men who had been shepherds so longthey walked like sheep.Under the olive trees, they raised their arms—Hear us! We have pain on earth!We have so much pain there is no place to store it!But the olives bobbed peacefullyin fragrant buckets of vinegar and thyme.At night the men ate heartily, flat bread and white cheese,and were happy in spite of the pain,because there was also happiness.
Some prized the pilgrimage,wrapping themselves in new white linento ride buses across miles of vacant sand.When they arrived at Meccathey would circle the holy places,on foot, many times,they would bend to kiss the earthand return, their lean faces housing mystery.
While for certain cousins and grandmothersthe pilgrimage occurred daily,lugging water from the springor balancing the baskets of grapes.These were the ones present at births,humming quietly to perspiring mothers.The ones stitching intricate needlework into children’s dresses,forgetting how easily children soil clothes.
There were those who didn’t care about praying.The young ones. The ones who had been to America.They told the old ones, you are wasting your time.Time?—The old ones prayed for the young ones.They prayed for Allah to mend their brains,for the twig, the round moon,to speak suddenly in a commanding tone.
And occasionally there would be onewho did none of this,the old man Fowzi, for example, Fowzi the fool,who beat everyone at dominoes,insisted he spoke with God as he spoke with goats,and was famous for his laugh.
From here.
Submission Guidelines for Intersections: Woman, Artist, Muslim. An Anthology
Intersections: Woman, Artist, Muslim Ruminations on Being, Creating, and Believing
Bismillah al Rahman al Raheem
This is a call for submissions for a new project, the anthology Artist Intersections: Woman, Artist, Muslim. As you well know art and all its various forms, such as poetry, performance, film, illustration, fashion, are often misunderstood and even demonized in the greater Muslim community. The intent of this project is to reflect on the experiences of creative/creating Muslimahs to (insha Allah) dispel some of these myths as well as to inspire others to maximize their God-given talents and the blessings available through doing so.
As this project hopes to reveal (notice we didn’t say “unveil”!) a wide scope of the artists and artistic happens, both visual and literary, across the ummah, we are open to accepting a diverse array of writing styles, including and by no means limited to essays, dialogues, creative non-fiction writing and poetry that is directly relevant to the subject matter. We would also like to include some inspiring, entertaining and/or insightful interviews of artsy sisters. You are welcome to put together an interview for submittal, contact us for suggestions of sisters of interest, or run by us ideas of potential interviewees.
Works which include excerpts from Quran, hadith, and other Muslim Maxims are of course welcomed in this project, however if your style or preference does not include such, your work is also welcome as we strive for inclusion of a diverse representation of believers, respecting the individuality in each Muslim point of view. This is not an anthology of “Islamic Art,” rather it is an anthology of Muslim Women Artists. In the spirit of inclusivity we ask that writers consider their readers and therefore cannot accept any work which includes vulgarity or explicit depictions of sex. Submissions from Sisters of Color are especially appreciated.
We would love to hear about issues related to being a Muslim woman artist, such as:
- Internal and external struggles with accepting yourself as a artist
- Rectifying your culture, art and religion
- Epiphany-like moments related to being an artist
- Art and dawah
- Art as ibadah
- Art as rizk: Being a working (as in selling) artist
- Accepting yourself as being a creative being or non-working (as in selling) artist
- Creativity and your community
- Reflections on historical Muslim arts and artists which inspire you
- Anything else related to your being an artist, a woman and a Muslim
Submission Guideline Details:
- Email all submissions both as .doc and pasted in the content of your email to intersectionsanthology@gmail.com
- Maximum 5,000 words
- Include a 2-3 sentence biography
- If you have one, include website or blog url
- Submissions due March 1st, 2012
Information about compensation, copy rights and similar will not be available until a publisher has been secured, minimally each accepted entry will receive a copy of the anthology.
Please help spread the word! Share the submission guidelines for Intersections: Woman, Artist, Muslim on your blog, website, social networks and with all of your creative sisters.
Link Love: Art is Worship by Sabina Giado
Political activism is Ibadah. My work, as I’ve expressed before, for me is often a form of activism.
Allah (SWT) has put in my heart the love of writing. Does this mean that writing could be a form of Ibadah? Subhanallah!
When one grows up thinking that only if you read the Qur’an and pray day and night will you reach the highest levels of Jannah, such a concept blows the mind.
Art is Ibadah.
If this is Allah (SWT)’s Rizq (provision for me), if this makes my heart beat, my blood quicken, my eyes refuse to shut even if it’s way past my bedtime, and most beloved of all, fills my heart with gratitude to Allah (SWT) with every letter I type, I believe that it may well be mustahhab (highly recommended), maybe even Fard (compulsory) for me to hone my craft.
Anything less would be ungrateful.
If the world tells me to shut up and go be an accountant (my apologies to all the passionate accountants reading this), I would remind myself that the secular world is also currently opposed to a myriad of outwardly religious activities, for example, the hijab. Spiritual art by comparison is a cakewalk and much easier to explain.
If I am not grateful for my provisions, including my love of writing, AND if I don’t serve my community through it, ultimately that barakah (blessing) will be taken from me. It is part of my religious duty to nurture it.
Allah (SWT) has placed love in my heart for writing. Mashallah, there must be a reason for that. Won’t stop till I find out what that reason is.
Inspirations: To Excess or To Deny?
There is a woman who comes to my comadre and complains that she knows that she has talent, that she has poetry in her, but her life is too hard, too busy; her husband, her children are too demanding. She is a moral, responsible person and cannot in good conscience allow herself the luxury of practicing art. My comadre takes the time to tell this woman that she can choose to “learn to sleep with one eye open,” to conjure up some female macho and claim the right to be an artist. But the woman is always prepared with an arsenal of reasons, all bigger than her needs, as to why she will die an unfulfilled woman, yearning to express herself in lyrical lines. She will, if pressed, imply that my comadre cannot possible be a nurturing mother or caring partner, if she can find the time to write. In my culture, this type of woman who has perfected on art—that of self-abnegation, sometimes even martyrdom—is called la sufrida, the suffering one. There is much more admiration and respect for la sufrida in our society than there is for the artist.
~ Judith Ortiz Cofer, “The Woman Who Slept with One Eye Open” from Word. On Being a [Woman] Writer.
