"Fitting In"

Why does anyone have to "fit in"? Aren't we, as a culture, striving to make a name for ourselves as individuals?

But beyond that even if we are not, why should I or anyone else attempt to fit into the tiny little box everyone else tries to put us in?

Recently my attention was brought to a post by Peaceful Muslimah in which she writes:

"I recently came across a discussion by an American muslimah living in the US lamenting her “homesickness” for an Arab country she visited. Another Muslimah
from that country questioned whether “homesickness” was the correct word/concept. This is just one particular thread but I have read many similar ones over the last year that express similar ideas. Many times Western Muslims glamorize the Arab world as a place where “real” Islam is practiced and often confuse Arab culture with Islamic mandates. I’ve written about this before with regard to converts taking Arab names, wearing Arab clothes and eating only Arab foods. I thought it might be interesting to share my perspective on the issue of Arabophilia."

Of course this is a reference to my post on missing Egypt.

Now I'm not even really upset and when I left a comment it was interpreted as being defensive, but honestly my only real issue with it is that she seems to have stuffed me into the same box as so many others who do legitimately romanticize the Middle East.

However I'm not one of them. I'm not going to Egypt to "get closer to God" or "become Arab" or even "find Islam."

I found Islam, and a more truer form at that, here in the US and I am content with it.

I'm content with who I am, I love to learn other cultures and I am certainly looking forward to getting to know Egyptian culture better but not with the intention of transforming myself into an Egyptian.

I am not obsessed with other, or otherness except in the form of discovering what the "other" believes and thinks and how they view the world. It's called discourse and its my absolute favorite thing in the world.

Today I was reading Artemisia Rants and I came across what I find to be the most brilliantly explained example of how I, myself, view the world and its "other" inhabitants (except in Artemisia's words):

". . . I can see past the surface appeal of this world of ‘otherness’ however, and I have never suggested that it is ‘better’! What interests me is the point where faith and culture meet. I am a strange creature in that I don’t really
trust anything. Only Allah. I can happily love people without trusting, I can
enjoy a culture without trusting, I can move between ideas without trusting.
This tasting of experiences from everwhre is interpreted as superficial, “not
knowing what I want”, but for me, the world is superficial. There are so many
ways of understanding everything. I draw the line at oppression and abuse that
can be quantified. This is where I will stand and judge.

Usually people want to rescue me from my “confusion”, situate me within a definite point of view. But they fail to recognize that I don’t want to be situated anywhere that is closed. My openness is what allows me to float. And I hope to move towards
Allah. I see though that at the moment I am drifting. I don’t need solidity in
my world view, but I need method."

I am not obsessed with "exotica," but I am obsessed with existentialism and I certainly refuse to be fit into a box or conform myself to wear the labels others would like to give me.

I have little to no desire to "fit in."

Dialectic Discourses

While searching out new things to read I stumbled quite innocently upon prominent Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz and decided to check out all the books the library had by him. I am very intrigued by his ideas and by his writings. Some of you may know of him, maybe for his incredibly blasphemous story The Children of Gebelawi (أولاد حارتنا/translit: Awlad Haretna) which won him a Nobel prize and put him on top of some extremists' "to kill" lists. He was stabbed in an attempted murder, but he survived. And yes, the story is VERY MUCH anti-religion, but it is also an existentialist work of art.

Here's where I clue you all into my very dialectic personality. For most of my life I've been like two people in one body (blame my Gemini birth sign if you believe in such a thing) but I have always straddled two worlds. This extends even now into being both an American and a Muslim and I would like to think that I, and most other converts, are living proof that these two things are not mutually exclusive, though they can often be quite thoroughly at odds with each other. As for myself I am very religious and I love my religion. But I also am very existentialist and very interested in existentialist discussions/writings. I am a firm believer in true discourse between people of opposing ideas without clashing and without compromising each other's ideals.

So I am reading, at the moment, Adrift on the Nile and I am fascinated by the way Mahfouz's main character Anis contemplates life, existance, and the possibility of people existing in multiple lifetimes at the same time. But there, do you see, is where others of a more conservative persuasion get a bit twisted in the knickers.

Blasphemy, cries my religious self. Art, cries my internal author and existentialist-junkie. That side is the one that accepts all ideas and believes fully in artistic freedom and which cannot fathom condemning some for not following the guide lines of religion. Of course the things Mahfouz's characters do, think, and expound on are truly against Islam. But some (or most) of his writings are pure genius.

Let us look more closely at The Children of Gebelawi. Uff, but it really is against ALL religion (not just Islam) and Mahfouz insults God and all the Prophets in it (Moses, Jesus, and Mohamed.) So how can I call this a work of art? Here is a brief synopsis of the story: Gebelawi has five sons of which he favors Adham (Adam) above the other four Idris (Satan,) Gabal (Moses,) Rifa'a (Jesus,) and Qasim (Mohamed.) Gebelawi's house is basically a very fabulous garden and when Gebelawi informs all his sons that he has chosen Adham to take over the management of the garden, Idris becomes angry and is banished by Gebelawi. He goes on to tempt Adham (through Adham's wife of course,) from outside the gates, to flout his father's wishes and Adham and his wife are soon banished. Time moves along to where only corruption and greed rule the garden until the offspring of each son- beginning with Gabal, then Rifa'a, and then Qasim in sequential order- uprise against the abuse to bring peace for a short time before failing leading to the next offspring uprising. In the end the protagonist Arafa (knowledge in arabic but symbolizing science) comes and kills Gebelawi.

Of course the allegory is obvious, and its statement is obvious. Gebelawi is God and in the end science/knowledge kills God (astughfurlillah.) This is not much different from whatever infamous person declared that God was dead however many years ago (does anyone know who declared that and when?) It is blasphemous, but the way in which it was written and the allegory used and the statement made, if you look at it from a literary perspective, is true artistic genius.

My author half (greedily existentialist) marvels at the story and wants to read it and anything like it, while my religious soul shrinks from even the idea of what is written there.

I believe that things like this can be read and discussed and contemplated while the real difference would be my understanding that while this may be one person's idea of what is true, it certainly is not MY Truth and therefor is not True for me. But this would not keep me from sitting and talking about and learning more on what they believe. This is dialectic discourse.

And so while I continue to wade my way through some of Mahfouz's other works (which I'm sure are written in astounding arabic but are often translated into unweildy english) I will continue with my own dialectic discourse between the two halves of myself.