Where in the World is Affad Shaikh

Since my last significant post, I would say its been two months or so. I have been pre-occupied. I went to go watch my Aunt die from Leukemia in Pakistan, so slowly died from the pollution and inept treatment of the physicians and staff at a so called "cancer specialty" hospital. (more on my adventures there later) These past few years, I have lost so many loved ones, that death has almost been a consistent guest in my life.

Then I came back and promptly saw a friend, former apartment mate, get married then a few other friends get married, met my other apartment mates fiance, and figured out my own living situation. I guess you can say, I now am a grown up, with my own studio in Orange County, having to take care of myself the whole nine yards.

I do admit the solitude in my new studio seems liberating. I haven't had to much time to enjoy its wonderful environment, as I have spent a lot of time moving, sorting, organizing my stuff. I lived a pretty chaotic, disorganized lifestyle these past few years. I guess that is what they call the "college years" and the "post undergrad" lifestyle. Its apparently settling in that I need to have stability of sorts.

Though my trip to Pakistan, subsequently to Mexico as well, re-enforced the fact that there is ever so much more to life then living in my bubble. I am reflecting on this fact and finding that my desire to see, and experience, the world is to strong to be neglected. For instance the Islam in Malaysia I experienced was something else, worth investigating further. The Islam in Pakistan, was actually a bit of a disappointment, such clash of ideas, like I might have mentioned to several people, its like Pakistan has several tracks that its traveling on, it happens that right now they all line up. In the near future the tracks will veer and that will be a dangerous thing to see. (Sadly, never did I think I would fear people with beards, but there I seriously questioned my security and well being as I went to the market, or filled up at a gas station, worse ride in a taxi.)

Work has occupied my life mostly- since I have gotten back its been hectic catching up with cases, deadlines, reports, requests, event attendance and the list goes on. But also I have been busy with this stupid desire to create a space of my own in my new studio. I have sort of brought out the inner interior designer our of me. But its not without help! I turn to Apartment Therapy to be my shining light, to figure out how to give my eclectic nature a physical form in the space I call my studio.

I know its a space that I rent. That I am limited in my ability to change the space, as well as the fact that I might move to some other situation at any given time, but I almost feel obligated to give manifestation to a sophisticated style of living rather then the "card board box dining table" I have been living these past several years. I believe my car will thank me for this change, its served as my closet, sometimes my bed, other times my study area.

One thing that excites me is that in the near future, I will come home from work, clean up, eat dinner and sit down with my long list of books to read and just begin reading. I miss that a lot. I want to read the book on my desk "Eastern Origins of Western Civilizations" or the book on "Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence" by Kamali, there is the historical fiction "Saracean Blade" and the Sci-Fi thrillers "Song of Ice and Fire" (4 of them, I highly recommend).

I don't mind coming and sitting on my couch and watching a movie, maybe the ending of "Jab we met"- Bollywood movie that got interrupted in Pakistan because of the regular power outages. Or even, finally sitting and playing Half Life for XBox, its sad, but as a college student doing all the things I did, I forced myself to stay away from video games. I think, I won't mind going to an Al-Maghrib seminar, in fact, if all goes well I hope to attend the one coming up later this month "The Torchbearers"- THIS WILL BE GREAT BOOST for my faith, especially with Ramadan coming up.

Its time to slow things down in life. To take it with a bit more ease. I get to caught up with things here, things there, and everywhere. My weakness has been my lack of focusing on "me" and having a place of my own, I look forward to that self dotting. I deserve it. I do.

Possibly even posting up some actually meaningful posts for you all to read, rather then the half-arsed nonesense you sometimes see posted by me.

Post-Ramadan Lull?

I don’t think many of us realize how lucky we are to be practicing Islam in the US. The ease with which we are able to practice our religion is something we take for granted. Think about how easy Ramadan was. Sure, the days were long this year round, but food was readily-available for iftar. We had alarm clocks to wake us up for suhoor. Most of us live ridiculously close to multiple masajid and have access to eminent scholars.

We only have to look to other countries to see how much struggle some of our brothers and sisters endure to practice this beautiful deen. I’m posting a excerpts from some articles I found touching during Ramadan.

Ramadan 'alarm clocks' tread risky path in Indian Kashmir

SRINAGAR, India (AFP) - In the pitch-dark early hours, men beating drums walk the narrow lanes of Indian Kashmir to wake people from their beds for a hearty pre-dawn feast ahead of a day of Ramadan fasting.

The human alarm clocks are the only ones who dare venture out at night in the revolt-hit region, where nocturnal pedestrians run the risk of a tough grilling or even a bullet from nervous Indian security forces. …

But the tradition goes back years, perhaps centuries, and the drum beaters say the Ramadan job is a vital source of income. …

"My heartbeat increases when I approach a security bunker. You never know, but I think now they (the Indian soldiers) are aware of the tradition." …

During the early years of the insurgency, the Indian army did not take too well to cries of "Wakhta-e-Sahar" -- often accusing the drum beaters of alerting militants ahead of security raids.

"It takes them time to comprehend what I am doing, but now they understand I am not out there for fun," Gulzar Lone, another wake-up man, said of the Indian security forces.

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Food price hikes weigh on Malaysian Muslims this Ramadan

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - It's Ramadan in Malaysia and the days of the Muslim fasting month usually mean fairy lights, dinner tables groaning with dishes, and an upbeat mood.

But this year many householders such as 45-year-old Siti Nora are upset and frustrated as sharp increases in the price of staple foods have meant that "breaking fast" is a much more meagre affair. …

"Definitely, the hike in prices will dampen our merry mood as we Muslims prepare for Eid al-Fitr celebration," she said, referring to the festival which marks the conclusion of Ramadan this weekend.

The cost of basic items such as chicken, eggs, flour and condensed milk have all risen by up to 50 percent thanks to a price creep which began last year and has spiked in recent weeks.

"A 250 gram pack of butter is now priced at 2.80 ringgit, up from 1.80 ringgit last year," she said, adding that her monthly grocery bill has jumped to at least 500 ringgit (147 dollars) from 300 ringgit (33 dollars) before.

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Paris Ramadan radio raps Muslim ignorance of Islam

PARIS (Reuters) - It's late of a Ramadan evening in Paris, the iftar dinners are finished and Muslims from around France are calling Ahmed el Keiy to ask questions about Islam.

"Can I wear perfume during Ramadan?" a young girl asks. "How about hair gel?" a boy wants to know.

El Keiy, a lawyer-turned-journalist, devotes his nightly radio phone-in show to Islam during the holy month and wants to discuss big ideas.

But his listeners keep asking about details.

"Why do we get so many questions about how to practice Islam?" he asks listeners and three imams invited to the cramped studio of Beur FM, a popular station for "beurs" -- the French-born sons and daughters of North African immigrants.

"Nobody teaches us religion," says one caller named Nacera. "Our parents were illiterate," caller Najet adds, "so you see people who don't know how to say their prayers properly, or exactly what to do during Ramadan."

France has Europe's largest Muslim minority. Thanks to a long tradition of relations with the Arab world, it is home to many Muslim intellectuals -- both foreign and French -- and experts on the Islamic world.

But in the poor areas where many of the country's 5 million Muslims live, ignorance prevails.

Illiterate elders follow a sketchy folk Islam, many imams preach at Friday prayers without any training and many young people construct a do-it-yourself religion.

Most of the 1,200 imams in France have no formal training and one-third do not speak French.

Sex Deprived...What is going on?

Search Results on Google Trends

By Affad Shaikh
The graph is a three year time frame of the trends in google searches. It show a comparison of two searches that I put in- Sex and Islam. Sex mainly because I thought that it would be a good base line to see how significant the search result is, and anyway I have a closet...(inside head thought, inside head thought!) and Islam because I thought, heck new google service lets play around with it.

I did not imagine that it would become a blog-worthy item, aside from the fact that it was an interesting tool that google was introducing. See these results come from google search statistics. Each of your computers has this thing called an IP address, which is basically a computer physical address on this world wide web. So they use this to track where the searches are coming in from and with all the information they have they have created this database which is now accesible by mere mortals like ourselves to play around with.

When I did my initial search I was playing around and to find that the top ten countries or "regions" as google refers to it were actually Muslim populated areas, disturbed me!

Look at the graph below. Unfortunaly one thing google trends doesnt do is provide numerical values to see the "volume" of searches being done. That is why I used "sex" becuase the saying goes technology is motivated for the access to "pornography"- don't believe me? Just read about the invention of the camera and some the things it was first used for, or read about video technology on phones and what motivates researchers and designers to push the limits of this new technology- from a friend on the inside on these sorts of thing, I personally get stories of what the thinking behind some technology is, and its disturbing.




So this disturbing data leads me to some questions, for which I doubt I have any answers, but its something to reflect on.

1. What is going on?

2. Are Muslims that sex deprived that they have to search it to such an extent in the privacy of their own rooms...or in cafe's?

3. I am assuming this is more Muslim youth then it is adults, so my question is are the countries so corrupt that morality has fallen down the hole?

4. For people who want to jump the gun and say this is because of the "hijab" etc, notice that Iran and Suadia Arabia are not amongst the countries listed, and both institute mandatory "hijab" of women; there might be other factors but still the countries listed are liberalized, I know Pakistan and Pakistan the people using the internet are wholeheartedly liberal, my family is included in them- and Malaysia and Indonesia are for sure liberal and booming economically. So is it the "liberal" society that confuses and conflicts with peoples head to lead to such staggering numbers?

Islam is about modesty and not about social controls, so in a place where there is a Islamic culture it doesnt necessarily mean social controls inhibit individual free will. The norms are there, but people do as people do.

Again the first graph is total worldwide searches. Then the second one is top ten, normalized search results. Now "normalized" means they take the total number of searches for the search words and divide it by percentage of the total search amount to get a top ten list. This might mean that more people using the internet doing more searches in some countries will make the normalized ratio larger then in others. Other factors also deal with how many people access and use google compartively to how people search for these sites elsewhere. Google is popular, but its not the "only" search engine out there.

If you do the same with porn, it gives you much greater hits else where in the world and they are non-Muslim countires in the top ten, click here to see for yourself. You will notice, closet suburban Irvine is quite up there in the ranks when it comes to "porn" searches. Finally, still shocked, I put in "gay" and well, Irvine seems to top the charts- those rich white people are wierd- so vocally homophobic yet so active on the net in searching for that stuff.

So you can't just use statistics to label an entire community one way or another, really you can not do that, if anything you can use it to discuss an issue but to label, I would be hard pressed. I can see Fox news headline now...followed by "White Upper Middle Class suburban Christian community tops the charts in Homosexual Google Searches".

However you look at it, its still a figure that needs to be looked at and taken into consideration.