Dirt and Robots

  "Papa's dead." I hear through the phone. "What?"   "Papa's dead!" "Baba?" "Papa." Papa. My uncle. Not my father, Baba. I rush out of my dorm room and go into the dorm's lounge and close the door. It is currently 3 in the morning.  "How am I supposed to go to class and act like everything is fine?" I sob through the phone.  And yet, I carry myself back to bed, wake up 4 hours later, brush my teeth, hair, spray perfume, and change into clothes for the second day of classes. When I finally look at the phone again, there are a slew of messages: Baba's in the hospital.  He won't stop remembering Papa and he keeps crying and his blood pressure gets higher.  What? OMG ___________________________________________________________________________________ Inna Illehe wa Inna Rajeoon. Assalamualaikum everyone. I have heard that Papa has passed away last night. {R} and {F}, I am so sorry for your loss. Papa was a grea...

My Resurgence to Islam: Finding Myself and Being More Confident When Faced with Troubles By Inaya Syed      Growing up, I never felt close to Islam. Sure, I practiced it, but I did not feel a personal connection to our stories of Rasulullah (SAW). Fun Fact: I went to Islamic school every weekend, from the ages of eight to eighteen. I spent nearly a decade trying to get close to our traditions, to most likely receive praise from aunties, who, in the grand scheme of things, did not matter in my life. I might receive some flak about this, but I was never what you call "religious". The reason they never let me move up in terms of Islamic school years was that their perception of me was that I was not religious enough because I chose not to wear the hijab from a young age all the time. They perceived me as lower than them because of my beliefs about Islam at the time and because I was not a hijabi. They genuinely never respected me. I did not return once I graduated from the I...