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[ Friday, February 04, 2005 ]

 

Say What?!?!

I was training Sis P (a Chicana friend who converted to Islam last year) at the MSA dawah table today, and since it was her first day tabling she was understandably a little nervous. As I tried to reassure her, two guys and a girl made their way up to the table and held our attention. The Asian guy simply looked around, letting the second guy (from now on referred to as SG) do all the talking. SG and the girl resembled each other, and they looked sort of Latino. I didn’t like SG since he was asking for a confrontation, while the girl simply looked on, amused.

SG pointed to my pink hijab and asked why I "wear that thing" on my head. When I responded, he said that he thinks it's oppressive, dismissing my assertion that wearing a hijab is in fact quite liberating. He also said that he thinks that Bush is right and that he is liberating Iraq. I mentally cursed Bush and tried to explain "the other side" to a brick wall. Picking up a Spanish dawah booklet from the table, SG held it up to his eye level and rapidly flipped through it, stopping at a page and rudely pointing to pictures of Arabic verses from the Qur'an. "What's this thing?" he asked, not caring to disguise his scorn. Sis P swallowed her anger and answered, "It's from the Qur'an," to which SG replied, "That's your holy book, huh?"

At this point, I couldn't stand it any longer and burst into laughter, much to Sis P's bewilderment. "As salaam u alaikum W!" I said to SG, and he grinned and replied "wa alaikum as salaam!" His younger sister, F, ran over and gave me a hug, all the while laughing about how it had taken so much from her not to laugh the whole time. Bro W said that he had had to hold the booklet over his face to hide his laughter. He introduced us to T, the Asian brother who had been standing nearby the whole time, listening unaffected, without a comment. I asked Sis P to forgive us for playing that prank on her, but we really couldn't help it. She graciously accepted, laughing along with us.

And people say Muslims don't have a sense of humor. Sheesh!

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