American Muslima Writer -Daring to Work Towards Jannah

Oh Lebanon! Keep Waiting!
Oh Syria! Keep Waiting!
Oh Jordan! Keep Waiting!
Oh Afghanistan! Keep Waiting!
Oh Pakistan! Keep Waiting!
Oh Iran! Keep Waiting!
Oh Iraq! Keep Waiting!
Oh Saudi Arabia! Keep Waiting!
Oh Kuwait! Keep Waiting!
Oh Bahrain! Keep Waiting!
Oh United Arab Emirates! Keep Waiting!
Oh Qatar! Keep Waiting!
Oh Oman! Keep Waiting!
Oh Yemen! Keep Waiting!
Oh Nigeria! Keep Waiting!
Oh Egypt! Keep Waiting!
Oh Sudan! Keep Waiting!
Oh Mauritania! Keep Waiting!
Oh Turkey! Keep Waiting!
Oh Algeria! Keep Waiting!
Oh Morocco! Keep Waiting!
Oh Kazakhstan! Keep Waiting!
Oh Uzbekistan! Keep Waiting!
Oh Turkmenistan! Keep Waiting!
Oh Nations of the Prophets! Keep Waiting!
Oh Nations of the Books! Keep Waiting!
Oh Nations of High Morals! Keep Waiting!
Oh Nations of Wealth and Populations! Keep Waiting!

Keep waiting for Israel to find it's last "terrorist" Hamas leader
with his automatic rifle in one hand,
his green bandanna across his forehead,
suckling at his mother's breast.
Keep waiting for this infant militant to throw his ball
across the room and receive a grenade back from Israel.
Keep waiting for the numbers
to reach higher and higher.
Keep waiting with your blindfolds on
and your hearts locked in vaults.
Keep waiting while Israel clear out the foreigners
to prepare for the slaughter.

Ah, but they deserve it don't they?
Their babies blinked. Their children laughed.
Their youth kissed. Their mothers toiled.
Their fathers wept. Their elderly sighed.
Shameful deeds indeed.
So please keep waiting.
Israel is not done.


(c) Brandy A. Chase, 2009

For those who have been blurking and never commenting because you wish more privacy or would secretly like to ask me questions I've undertaken the initiative to get another e-mail address besides the private one I've had since I was 13 lol. I never felt comfortable giving out my private address online but a few people have asked for it over the past year on this blog so finally I have the need to use it.

americanmuslimawriter@gmail.com

There it is! Simple I know but easy to remember if you want to e-mail me hehehe. Don't forget my "Muslimah" has no H
MUSLIMA

Thanks and I look forward to getting e-mail from those who wish to.

A lot of my current stress came from the fact that someone had illegally used my bank account to buy purchases in Illinois, USA while I slept unknowingly in Al-Ain, UAE. My bank account shows MINUS $500 in the hole. On top of that I got another $100 overdraft charge. So my card had to be renewed and flown to me across the world and I had to fill out all these papers and my account is frozen until this is cleared up. I thought it was a completely weird but random accident. I mentioned this to my doctor though and she said that was interesting because another of her patients experienced the same thing. I thought hmmm... very odd. The next day as I was buying my daughter a little cupcake on the way home from Jummah I saw an article as I was browsing the headlines.

Hackers
break into UAE credit network to fund US purchases
"- Abu Dhabi // An international investigation is under way to find hackers
believed to have stolen information from financial servers in the UAE to
make fraudulent credit and debit card purchases in the US. The scheme came
to light after a number of employees at the US Embassy – and a handful of
other US citizens – had unauthorised purchases show up on their credit and
debit cards in recent months, prompting the embassy to issue a warning on
its website...............
"Visa told her that the intrusion had happened “at the processor level”,
which she said suggested that computer hackers had penetrated the electronic
records of organisations that acted as middlemen between merchants and credit
card companies such as Visa and MasterCard...........
"The case has also prompted concerns that security measures designed to
protect personal financial information may be too lax in the UAE.
Numerous establishments in Abu Dhabi print customers’ full details, such as customer names, entire card numbers and expiration dates, on receipts. Many countries, including the US, have laws requiring such details be truncated to prevent
sensitive information from being stolen...........
"“The hackers sell data to anyone who cares to buy,” said Mr Johnson. “They
might advertise it on the internet, and then resell it further down the chain.
Hackers could be from Eastern Europe, for example, and sell their stolen data to
people who make clone cards in Latin America.”.............
"Recent years have seen an increasing number of credit card and get-rich-quick schemes in the UAE, which have wrested millions of dirhams from residents.A Middle East manager for an anti-fraud division of a large international bank, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there had been a rise in so-called “skimming” incidents at ATM machines. Under a typical skimming scheme, criminals rig ATM machines with card-reading data and cameras to steal pin codes. They then compile the information to make clone debit cards............"

I'm going to post a small part of a post I put on my private blog because I feel it needs to reach wider and everyone neeeds to take the time to appreciate their children more.

*I yelled alot at my daughter today and finally she's getting sleepy after three hours of trying to get her to sleep*.........My mind is working frantically though as she starts to wear down. WHere is this coming from all this hate and anxiety towards my own daughter whom I love so much and would go to great lengths for? Obviously Shaytan is messing with my head. So I begin reading Qur'an for us both and it calms her down to sleep and me down to clearheaded. Finally she drifts off and I march here to the PC to do some major research. I've had it. I'm sick of yelling at my kids and feeling like al-Qaida surrounded by "Kuffar". (ie hot blooded). ..... I feel like crap and they feel like crap and this is all not healthy at all and it has to change NOW not tomorrow. So I'm googling things now and I will post it to both sites the links though not the full story of course. I already hear your critisim beleive me I know what a poophead I'm being. I'm the one who has to look into their hurt blue eyes and trembling lips and so I AM trying to find a way to stop this. I know it all stems from the chaos of life right now but it's such a visious cycle. Kids up all night sleep in the day eat irregularly etc,.. it all ties together but I don't know how to get it to re-adjust itself..... ugh.... ok let me get these links going:
http://www.babycenter.com/400_how-can-i-stop-yelling-at-my-toddler_500774_1000.bc
How to Stop Yelling
http://daddybrain.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/stop-yelling-daddy/
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080111132054AALB4qR

Oh my god. I really am literlly crying now because I just read this aweful poem about child abuse and it's so terrible and yet so real and true that it kils me all over again that I even shout once at my kids. Ya ALLAH, please have mercy on me and stop me from doing this horrid thing to my kids.... PLEASE!
http://www.babycenter.com/400_how-can-i-stop-yelling-at-my-toddler_500774_1000.bc?pageSize=10&startIndex=10&questionId=500774&ownerId=1000
(about fifth or six comment down on this last link I found this)
"I too yell at my littl girl. Sometimes it's so fustrating and when shes yelling and crying and whining all morning, I feel like I'm not good enough and I'm not a good mom. Then I just break and yell back at her really loudly, and sometimes I start crying after because i feel so bad.. When I yell at her she gets scared and jumps and starts really crying, I just want to die after it happens but it's already done. I want to be more calm and patient, she is only 13 months but I feel so stressed out sometimes. Today was one of the few days that i really yelled back at her and I put her down for a nap, and went and relaxed for a while. When she got up I was trying to be really patient and calm and nice to her cause I felt so terribly auful. I then came to work today and a friend of mine sent me an e-mail called Blue Ribbon Against Child Abuse and I read it, it goes like this:
my name is sarah I am but three my eyes are swollen I cannot see I must be stupid i must be bad What else could have made My daddy so mad? I wish I were better, I wish I weren't ugly, Then maybe my mommy Would still want to hug me. I can't speak at all, I can't do a wrong Or else I'm locked up All the day long. When I awake I'm all alone The house is dark, My folks aren't home. When my mommy does come, I'll try to be nice, So maybe I'll get just one whipping tonight. Don't make a sound, I just heard a car My daddy is back From charlies Bar. I hear him curse My name he calls I press myself Against the wall. I try and hide, From his evil eyes I'm so afraid now I'm starting to cry. He finds me weeping He shoults ugly words, he says it's my fault That he suffers at work. He slaps me and hits me, And yells at me more I finally get free and run for the door. He's already locked it, And I start to bawl He takes me and throws me Against the hard wall I fall to the floor With my bones nearly broken, And my daddy continues With more bad words spoken. "I'm sorry!", I scream But it's now much too late His face has been twisted Into unimaginable hate. The hurt and the pain Again and again Oh please God, have Mercy! Oh please let it end! And he finally stops and heads for the door, While I lay there motionless sprawled on the floor. My name is Sarah And I am but three Tonight my daddy Murdered me.
I know it's too sad and very extreme, but we must try to stay calm with our children, because they sometimes know no better. After reading this poem, I know I will make an effort to try and understand my chilkd more, and get angry at her less. posted 3/29/2006 by Guilty mother canada "

Oh MY, are you crying too? Can you just feel the girl's wanting to love her parents? Don't you look at your own children and think how often they just want our love too? Why am I doing this too my kids? Because I'm stressed about the hosue and marraige and life and everything? It's not even worth one tear from my baby. Maybe this poem affects me more because I have been in abusive foster homes and all I wanted was parents to love me and they wouldn't. We have so much love to give our children and we waste time doing other things. Ya ALlah.
Here's the last link: http://actagainstviolence.apa.org/specialtopics/yelling.html

This moron shot the Qur'an, my beloved book of all books, 14 times and wrote nasty things inside. He's an American Soldier in Iraq and did this IN IRAQ. The public protested and the US worried this could cause a whole lotta strife between US and Iraq and the world so they were rushing to apologise and do what they could to correct the situation which I commend BUT I think the soldier is getting off too easy. He was sent home and dissaplined. More should be done so this doesn't happen in the future. They apologised so fast to appease the Muslims not to have world-wide protests. I think we should have world wide protests anyways so the next moron with a gun thinks twice before violating our HOLY BOOK FROM GOD.
While we're at it we should realize the world really seems to quake under the wrath of Muslims worldwide
"Bloody protests have sometimes been held across the Muslim world when the Islamic faith has been insulted. The swift apology by the U.S. commanders appeared aimed at avoiding similar violence in Iraq."
(ALHAMDULILLAH!) and use our strength to "protest" more important things like the fact MUSLIMS who read the Qur'an are dying. We boycotted danish products when they made the imfamous cartoon. WHy aren't we boycotting ALL products by all countries that are against Muslims? We number 1/5th of the world's population and are growing and we have to ENCOURGE our brothers and sisters to protest about names used wrong, cartoons drawn, qur'an's shot, when we should be protesting EVEN MORE about us MUSLIMS dying, unable to pray or read qur'an, or teach our children even Bismillah anymore. Sometimes I wish so hard that the Mehdi comes to unite the Muslims and establish Islmaic State and Shari'a just so we will finally be united and people will really fear the wrath of the Muslims.

Here's the story link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24693647&GT1=43001

When your heart flips and accepts something it hasn't before and it leaves you feeling disoriented and feeling strange and surreal, what do you do? Many of us at one point never heard of Islam or never accepted it then suddenly our hearts flipped for whatever reason and we said Shahada. Allah is the only one who guides us and insha'Allah we follow obediently.

SO my heart has been doing flips this past month or so. It has to do with the controversial topic of polygamy. Everyone has this Poly post and there is hot debate each time. I'm not looking for hot debate I'm looking for answers. Real Answers. My heart started flipping when I asked my husband if we could have someone in need stay with us. He joked about marrying her and such but it was all banter and I joked back threatening to break his neck if he tried etc... but inside my heart did a little wiggle and suddenly a little voice asked, would poly be so bad? I pushed it aside and gawked at myself in the mirror for asking myself such a question. I'd read blogs like Angry Muslimah and Peaceful Muslimah about the trials to overcome in poly and how many men abuse it for their own whims. I began reading more and more online about it and all said bad bad bad though accepted by Islam if done right, yet I haven't found yet a blog pointing to their idyllic marriage of poly done right by Islam. My sister-in-law's sister-in-law is in Poly because she couldn't have kids and she chose her co-wife. SO this topic is nothing new to my ears and it's always piqued my interest. So to make a long story short after getting to know a friend better we discussed this issue at length and she surprised me with all the benefits Poly holds for the woman if done right.

She explained how if the two women are friends and live relatively close to each other:
1. they can take care of each other's kids giving the other wife a chance to clean, cook, pamper, or take a romantic walk/drive with hubby without kids around.
2. they can have a lifelong friend to always talk to when sad or in need of company
3. The kids will have friends to play with who are related to them yet wont have the daily sibling squalls because they live in separate houses.
4. They get a free day without Hubby under feet to bother them or demand attention.
5. They have a reason to not hang around in sweats when Hubby is home, good natured jealousy to always look as nice as the other wife. (though naturally the friends/co-wives wont talk about bedroom stuff)

Now of course you have to get used to sharing HIM and he of course has to be fair and pay for all you both need and such but this was the first time i had heard about BENEFITS to the wife. Always I hear how horrible it is and such. Here's the funny heart flipping thing.... I like the benefits. It does make sense in many ways and as long as you and the co-wife are good friends there is no reason why it shouldn't work. Just because they don't blog about it doesn't mean there aren't happy Poly marriages out there. I did actually get the guts to discuss this with my hubby and he didn't want it because of the financial burdens. Yet my heart is still inclining towards it being good in the right circumstances and with the right co-wife. So I want to really hear from people out there the Benefits of Poly. When I searched it online I found a lot of Mormon sites soooo I'm looking for Islamic benefits and such. Not benefits for the man but benefits for the wives. Here's a challenge my readers and I want you to come through on this one. Be brave and be bold. I wont put you down if you don't agree with me. I'm just naturally curious to hear what everyone has to say.

After thinking really hard about life and how short it is and how I need to consintarate on the spiritual matters of life more and encourage my family to do so. I really thought about how TV is the root of many problems in my house. What does hubby do when coming home? Eat and watch the hilarious Conan O'Brien. Ok we also watch CNN/Orbit news programs or comedy shows or a rare movie. What we are not doing is sitting down and reading qur'an as a family or playing games as a family or doing ANYTHING as a family. In the afternoons it's a TV war of who gets a turn. My 3 year old is obsessed with Playhouse Disney.

She will literally cry and put out all the acting stops to get her father not to have his turn on the TV so she can continue her marathon of DISNEY DISNEY DISNEY. You say it is my fault and you're right it is. I relied too much on the TV to amuse my daughter when I was pregnant and then after i had my son. I wanted her to leave me in peace to put the baby to sleep so I'd put on disney or a movie to keep her entertained because I didn't have the time to play interactive games with her. Now I'm paying the price and so is she. She's hooked day and night. The only way to get her excited about waking up in the morning is to say "Oh look Disney is on TV". She hops out of bed and runs to the couch to slump there-in until i get her dressed. Now Playhouse Disney does have excellent shows for pre-schoolers and she has learned a lot about life from these shows and I am happy she learns things not just mindless zoning but ALL DAY!?
This is time she can be pretending with her toys or interacting with me more and I think i need to lay down the law now to everyone in the house. No more TV all the time! I thought about cancelling my Orbit subscription but then I think about that what if i want to watch how the latest war is deveolping on CNN? Is this shaytan whispering in my ear so I don't ban my TV? You betcha. I have my workout DVD's so I can't just ban the TV altogether so maybe i should start limiting it for now and see how that works first. I want my family to be less materialistic (not that we are or can afford to be but what we have is not really needed for this life) but where does one draw the line? I want my family to spend time on Islam but does tossing all unnessisary things guarantee that this will happen? If I get rid of all the junk we've accumilated and all the stuff we haven't touched in months will life really improve? Where is the moderation between living with the bare essentials and getting by in today's world? Movies are fun especailly for kids and gives them a chance to flex their imaginations, thought they ceratinly aren't nessisary Islamically so how does one balance what to get and not to get in this life? I want my family to reach Jannah insha'Allah but I don't want to deprive my family of a "normal" life. I want us to be closer and to have quality time together. I want us to be as minimalistic as possible without being barren. Why waste our precious(meaning rare) money on things that will not benefit us in the next life? I want us to have experiences yet I don't want us corrupted. How do I achieve balance?
Sometimes I just want to smash all the unnessisary things!

So what's my new vision hold for writing you may ask...

I realized that being American AND Muslim is unique. Being these and living in Arabia makes MORE unique. Being married to Lebanese I've been able to live the culture and now moving to UAE I've learned how the cultures differ in different countries. All this adds to a lot of knowledge about Middle East and Arab behaviour. My goal is to use my knowledge to write more believable books featuring Arabs (men or women) as my lead characters. Some I hope to base on principles of Islam and falling in love. Others will have more "western flair" but still conform to my beliefs. I'm hoping that with my insights the books wont be just another "silly Arab romance novel" but something substantial that has meaning and is memerable as something real. My books will take place in REAL Arab countries that I've extensivly researched not the normal "fictional countries" listed on the website Shiek and Desert Love listed below in my "Daily Read". They [other Authors] who have writen for fictional countries are afraid to offend the culture becuase they dont KNOW the cultures as I do. This is why I'm not afraid to write for Real countries.
Some may ask why not write non-fiction if you're a stickler for mainly facts? The honest answer is I LOVE FICTION! I daydream almost non-stop about what i write and even daydream and spend my day in imagination on stories that will never become a book but they are just fun to play. Not that I don't have my serious time too like taking care of house and kids and husband but I try to fit these things when plausable into my imaginations. I'm sure if there were hidden cameras People would really think I'm strange talking and murrmering to myself as I talk out characters but *shrug* each to his own. There's more a sence of idealism (me being an idealist) in romance books that I love. Sure maybe a man WONT give a woman multiple O* 10 times in a row but it COULD happen if someone took the time and EFFORT. HAHAHA ok I hear you saying get real... see this is where you (actaully I) have to decide what needs to be real and what needs to be fiction.
For example I do need to know how Tribal systems work for my current book in ANcient Arabia in the time of Ignorance before Islam. How do I learn about this? Through mainly my father-in-law, my grandfather-in-law, my other in-laws and internet research. Also being in Middle East i can visit some of these sites and get a clearer idea. As for Arab relationship problems I got that covered personally being marriedto an Arab, having read hundreds of romance novels, and asking quite bluntly to all my sister-in-laws if this or that would really happen. It's a nice system.
Sure I have DOZENS of books that are non-Arab, romance, or sci/fi/fantasy, in development but when it came time to pick a "first book" me and my family and in-laws thought my Arab books were best for now. As I grow as an Author someday I will have time for my lovely others.
So here's a last note: I am trying to interview currently Arabs with unique marriages that are "different" from AMerican standpoints. Like the prevalence of cousins marrying each other. Sure it does happen in USA but not like it does with acceptance here. So anyone out there who would liek to be interviewed and are married to an Arab or are Arab let me know and I'd be happy to ask a few questions. Also helps if you come from UAE, Yemen, Syria, European countries other than UK, Saudi, Jordan etc... I want to pick your mind of all the inform it has about your culture and personal relationships (within Islamic boundries of course). I don't need to know stuff like how many times and when you sleep with your spouse. I'm talking about basic questions like How did you meet? WHY did you like this person? What about their culture is hard to deal with? Etc... I wont write your life story I will just break it down to be used randomly (with your permission of course) within many books. LIke if I write about Yemen I'd take waht you said of the culture and what that guy said about his wife and what that lady said about her cat and bam there's the story.... well it works in my mind and on paper but describing inspirtaion proccess is hard...
So that's a little bit of what's going on in my writing head all day.