Memoirs of an American Muslim V.02

Awesome video, a must see about facts regarding technology and how it is affecting our lives today…

Source: Al-Jazeera Talk of genies has been around every since I was a child, with television shows like “I dream of Genie”, cartoon movies such as “Aladdin” with a genie who practically steals the show, to movies like “The Mummy”, in which talk of supernatural becomes real, genies have had no lack of mainstay in American culture. And now… we get this news… After years of hopes and dreams that one day one of us would be lucky enough to have our own genie, it all gets crushed, especially if you are a Malysian Muslim, with the issuance of a Fatwa against it by Malysian clerics. (Disclaimer: If you haven’t already realized I am being a bit sarcastic in my post, then please stop reading now, and visit a less controversial site… Hehe, ok more sarcasm…). Check out the story below:

“A Malaysian museum has closed an exhibition on supernatural beings after Islamic religious authorities issued a fatwa, or decree, against it, state media have reported. The National Fatwa Council had ruled on Thursday that exhibitions on ghosts, ghouls and supernatural beings were forbidden, as they could undermine the faith of Muslims.”We don’t want to expose Muslims to supernatural and superstitious beliefs,” the Berita Harian newspaper quoted him as saying.

“Thousands of visitors had attended musuem in the western state of Negri Sembilan since it launched the ghost and genie exhibition on March 10, due to run until May 31.”

Its curator had previously resisted calls from Malaysia’s arts minister and a religious leader for it to be shut down amid criticism that encouraging a belief in ghosts was un-Islamic.

But Kamaruddin Siaraf, Negeri Sembilan’s state secretary and chair of the state museum board, said the exhibition was terminated after the National Fatwa Council ruled against such events.

He said the decision was made out of respect for the council’s views, the state Bernama news agency reported.

Malaysian government officials have already called for a ban another exhibition in a state museum that has put on display decaying objects described as the carcasses of a genie and a mythical phoenix bird.

Last year more than 200,000 people attended an exhibition of about 100 coffins, ghosts and genies that organisers claimed included relics of mermaids and vampires.”

A poet once said, “writer’s block, writer’s block, writer’s block”…

That is what I feel like lately. So much I want to say, so many feelings that need to be put on virtual paper with virtual ink. Yet, my mind thinks, and my hands don’t translate. Perhaps it will pass…

* AM *

From the first time I saw your face,

I knew that you would never allow yourself to be disgraced.

My sister, you are stronger than I could ever be,

From my blindness, your beauty within has opened my eyes for me to see.

God has created you as a sign for all to witness,

Without your presence this world would feel un-blessed.

I am just a man, struggling to understand your strength,

For within I am weak, and at societies pressures, I break.

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