Rias A. Sherzad

Every once in a while you invite us, the Muslims, to your weddings, birthdays, parties and Christmas celebrations.
Every now and then we can’t make it. Every now and then we don’t want to make it. It’s not personal, not at all. In fact, the mere gesture is what we appreciate more than you can imagine. Among us Muslims and Afghans it’s all about intention, respect and politeness and such invitations are considered as all three of them, especially because we live in a western society and you show that you care about us.

It might sound awkward to you but the reason why many of us try not to attend your events is because of you, not us, drinking alcohol. You might be wondering why we care about you drinking it as long as we, the Muslims, don’t. After all we’re not doing anything that goes against our religion, right?

Almost.

The problem is that we’re supposed to stay away from things that are clearly forbidden, „Haram“, to us. We’re supposed to stay away from temptation and anything else that is considered going against the teachings of Islam. Even as kids we’ve been taught that those things are not good to do so those memories and thoughts are deep inside us.
Secondly there’s the cultural aspect. As Afghans we’re overly protective of our spouses and children and we don’t want them to be around people that are drinking or acting in any other way that goes against our religion or culture. Even if we do attend your events, as sometimes it’s inevitable or it would be absolutely impolite not to attend them, you will often times see us coming over by ourselves, without our spouse, and leaving after a short while.
So it’s nothing personal. It’s not about not wanting to be in your company or not wanting to „hang around“ but about us feeling uncomfortable in an environment that, since childhood, we’re taught is considered „Haram“.

Living in a western society this leads to a bunch of problems to some of us. I don’t attend some of the industry get-togethers because during those events people drink beer. I have skipped every Christmas party my employers have invited me to. And I skip the yearly joyride-boat-trip-thing that a former colleague keeps inviting me to since… years.
Simply put, they’re all not compliant with my upbringing and I feel uncomfortable being there. Still I feel bad about turning down your invitations as I know you mean it in a good way.

Before all of this sounds like a bad excuse let me stress again that we do appreciate the fact that you do invite us and that you do want us to be around you. We have been trained to keep those little pleasantries in our memory and in our hearts and to not forget them.

The least we can do is tell you honestly why we can’t attend. I think in the past I’ve been pretty honest about that to my non-Muslim friends. Good explanations, how awkward they may sound, are always better than a bad and obvious excuse.

In addition to English we have launched a few more languages on the Salam Business Club: German, French and Turkish as languages written from left-to-right and Arabic, Urdu and Persian which are based on Arabic letters and are written from right-to-left.

The thoughest part was making sure the pages are implemented in a fashion that makes it possible to apply a different CSS and language file to it so the complete content, text and writing direction changes. Once that system was set up we provided the translators with three different methods to translate the content: using a backend translation system, inline-editing of words they see on the site and the old-school way of translating the texts from within an Excel-sheet and importing them into the system.

Kudos go out to Max, Dmitri, Amit, Jayawant and Pankaj for all the technical stuff and Ayla (Turkish), Eman (Arabic), Hossein (Persian), Nasir (Urdu) and Saloua (French) for the translations. Our biggest thanks goes to Eman who had the toughest job as she was the first translator and she probably had to spend more time beta-testing than translating the site. Her invaluable feedback paved way for the other translations. In case you’re looking for professional translators get in touch with me and I will connect you to those highly recommended folks.

Today, again, I caught myself reading Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi’s (also known as “Rumi”) poetry for hours. I don’t really know what makes me do this as I’m not into Sufism nor any other kind of spirituality that Rumi’s poetry expresses.

What does make me read his poems over and over again is the fact that much of his poetry forms the basis of classical Afghan music, such as Nashinas‘ beautiful version of “Beshnaw az nay”, meaning: “Listen to the reed”. That might have built the bridge.
Compare the poetry of “Listen to the reed” to “Baby hit me one more time” and you might understand what attracts me to Afghan music and Rumi’s poetry in general… ;-)

Check out khamush.com and RumiOnFire.com for a collection of his works.

For weeks and months the world was supplied with images of westerners and alleged traitors being decapitated in Iraq. For non-Muslim viewers these pictures likely appear to be the maximum amount of horror a human being can quell, but for Muslims decapitation is beyond the fear factor. It’s an anology to the ancient times of the Prophet Mohammad (saw) and the legendary Salah al Din Yussuf Ibn Ayyub – in the west known as “Saladin”.

Ironically, Salah al Din was born in the same city as Saddam Hussein, Tikrit, but in stark contrast to Mr. Hussein, Salah al Din was renowned for his chivalrous and merciful nature during battles. He is regarded one of the greatest military leaders in the history of Islam and probably the most prominent figure of the times of the crusade period. His reputation for being fair-minded and just earned him respect even amongst his enemies, to wit: the Christians. One example is his relationship with Richard the Lionheart. Their relationship entailed a balance of intense military rivalry with a mutual degree of respect. This sort of balance was paralleled with his relationships with other kings, such as Frederick I of Hohenstaufen, also known as Barbarossa (“Redbeard”).

Now what do Mohammad (saw), Salah al Din and the resistance fighters have in common?

Well… actually… nothing!

The resistance fighters use the imagery and vocabulary that Islam and the history of Islam gives them to gain spiritual support in the Muslim world. Using knives and swords to fight and punish the enemy – by decapitating them, as common in many so-called Islamic countries – is an allusion to the times when Mohammad (saw) and Salah al Din fought their enemies with nothing other than their bare hands and swords.
The resistance fighters – claiming that western imperialism and especially American military actions are threatening Islam – punish those that they consider enemies with the same means that Salah al Din punished his enemies, e.g. the infamous knight, murderer, looter and plunderer Raynald of Chatillon, who threatened to attack the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. He was decapitated and probably by Salah al Din himself.

There is just one fact that the resistance fighters have not taken into account when trying to represent themselves along the same moral level as Mohammad (saw) and Salah al Din. The latter were – even in the western world – renowned for never killing the innocent and in countless cases exercising compassion when the highest degree of punishment was due.