Some of my dad’s favorite things — to unwind after a long day — were the newspaper word puzzles. Most of the time it was the crossword puzzle, sometimes sudoku, and one time I remember it was the codeword puzzle. Basically, a riddle whose answer is decoded through numbers. That night, the riddle was a quote by Ambrose Bierce that almost 20 years later I still remember:
“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”
Even at 15 I disagreed, and still do. While I concur, speaking with blood boiling is not always the wisest, I have found that most of my greatest writing, analyses, driving, and brainstorming come from my moments of anger.
This world does its due diligence to strip women of all our emotional (and physical) autonomy — anger included — so much so that it’s mutated into a low-blow stereotype. You know, beware a woman scorned, or ice queen, or the unending reference to “how we are” on our periods (I’d love to see a man endure heavily flowing blood from his penis, accompanied with intense pelvic cramps, severe back pain, a headache, nausea, all while juggling family, work, and adult responsibilities with an upbeat picturesque attitude).
Our anger is more often than not justified, and that’s precisely why the world continues to stifle and/or stigmatize it. Validating us would be an admission of guilt and a call to action, neither of which the world really wants to do. It’s a threat to the patriarchy, to capitalism, and to every other institution that thrives on the backs of oppressing women, and BIPOC women, at that.
While I am still the Lady Narrator with abundant gratefulness for her blessings and finally finding the end of her novel, but I am also still the woman who survived domestic abuse and sexual assault in a society that continues to dismiss survivors, belittle our voices, but forgive the abusers to the point of immunity. I’m not advocating for ultimate cancel culture, but I cannot fathom how religious scholars, leaders, and academics are not vetted properly nor are they punished severely enough to set a clear example.
As if doomscrolling today through news of Israel’s ongoing genocide on Palestine, Lebanon, and new air strikes into my home, Syria, wasn’t enough, I learned of yet another religious educator — in a large scale renowned institution, mind you — who (this time) engaged in abusive behavior that involved child pornography. I’ve spent the day trying to research this more diligently to try and get the facts before jumping to conclusions, (and feel free to send anything my way) but it’s looking hard to dispute. Especially when figures like Noman Ali Khan are not only welcomed back into the community with wide open arms, but given back their massive platforms like a blank check. When institutions like Yaqeen Institute publish work from Hassan Shibly and refuse to respond to inquiries from the community about said partnership.
So yeah, today was a difficult day for writing, for survivors, for a lot of things. May God guide Muslims to learn how to respect their own communities from within before acting entitled to things from without, then may He grant us a #FreePalestine!