Mid-Week Pick me up

Last week a group of people and I were talking about how Muslims are portrayed in the Media humorously and what is and isn't tasteful. Someone brought up The Simpsons episode "Mypods and Boomsticks." It's about a Jordanian boy named Bashir, whose family recently moved to Springfield. Homer's friends convince Homer that the Bashir's family is a terrorist and he sets out to investigate.

I just watched it and thought it was pretty funny and wanted to share it in case you haven't seen it. It's worth a watch. Let me know what you think. :) click HERE to check it out.

Rock....Paper... Scissors...JESUS!

Bam!! When my kids at school play this, Jesus totally TRUMPS all of the above. Obviously. It's funny how kids can have more faith in things than adults. Not just concerning their religiosity either. But just in general. They are more optimistic, hopeful, open-minded about things around them then adults are. We can always say it, but it's so true that kids are wiser then we give them credit for. I asked my kids how they would settle a disagreement and argument today. I also asked them to respond and provide both negative and positive ways to settle a dispute. Negative ways included fighting and insulting one another. And positive methods ranged from talking it out, walking away, hearing the opposing side, breathing, counting to ten, apologizing to one another, and asking others for advice. Terry Jones, the pastor that burned the Qu'ran recently, and has been threatening to do so since the 9th anniversary of September 11, and the people in Afghanistan that are attacking and killing innocent civilians in retaliation, could learn a thing or two from them. Shame on all of them for acting the way they are. Whether it's figuratively, or literally, haven't they all learned from Mahatma Gandhi, that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind?

you guys didn't wish your christian readers a merry christmas. how rude.

That was a comment left for us by Anonymous on Mrs. Cullen's post (below). And that comment has left a smile on my face for a couple of hours after reading it. And no, it wasn't an evil, mocking smile. It was a genuine, I'm so happy, smile.

I'll tell you why I was happy. Whether you think I'm cuckoo for it, is up to you. After reading it, I had two thoughts cross my mind, Sir Anonymous is right, we didn't wish our Christian readers a merry christmas and maybe it was very rude.

The second thought being, OMG SOMEBODY cares about what we say!!!! YAYYY!! There is someone out there who genuinely cared whether or not we wished people Merry Christmas, and yes 'cared' is being used loosely here. Sir Anonymous was bothered or at least thought that it should be expected from this blog of random, rambling Muslim girls. And that makes me happy. I'm happy that even after all the highs and lows we have with this blog and even after how it feels like we're doing such a sluggish job, that our words DO matter. So, yayy

Anyways, to Sir Anonymous (And yes I am quite aware you could be a Madam, but let's just say I'm using the word 'Sir' VERY loosely) and to EVERYONE else that has, does, and will read our blog, I am sorry we didn't send out a holiday greetings, whether you celebrated Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas or Diwali and whatever else I may be missing.

I could give you all the reasons and excuses why each of us forgot to say anything for Christmas, including being out of the country, having blogging lows, being unsure as to which holidays to send greetings for, and some other reasons, but it doesn't really matter at this point. I wished random strangers a Merry Christmas, but I didn't say anything to my readers...that is rude.

So I wanted to say first of to all our Christmas celebrating readers, I truly hope you had a GREAT CHRISTMAS :)

I can honestly say that I love watching the spirit of giving and happiness that comes into people at this time of the year, every year.

And to those who celebrated Hanukkah at the start of December, of this soon to be ending year, I hope you had an amazing experience and your latkes were as yummy as they could be (I've been on a mission to make latkes since last year... and maybe there'll be another awesome youtube song next year...I flip my latkes in the air sometimes saying ayy ohh spin the driedel)

For all the Kwanzaa fans, I hope you're having a HAPPY KWANZAAA!!

For those that celebrated Diwali in November, I'm sorry we're a month behind in wishing that you had a great Diwali, and I hope the one for next year will be just as great as this year if not better.

And to everyone else whose holidays we missed this past year, I hope your holidays in the new year will be experiences filled with good things, happiness and success.

I hope our readers and especially Sir Anonymous can forgive us, if not completely then at least partially, and forgive us if we make the same mistake next year, because to be honest with you, we're not the most organized, efficient or best of humans and we tend to get caught up with our own lives and problems.

So forgive us? Okay? And I really do hope you had a great Christmas Sir Anonymous. Oh and thank you.

CC, out.

i kill you!

"So you're a terrorist?" "Yes. I'm a terrorist" "What kind of terrorist?" "....A terrifying terrorist...Are you scared?" "Not really, No" .... "God dammit! ...Oh oh I mean, Allah Dammit."

Recognize the lines? If you're an avid comedy fan, you'll recognize them from Jeff Dunham's stand-up comedy act with "Achmed the dead terrorist"

The first time I watched the act on youtube, it wasn't hard to guess that the puppet named Ahmed (Achmed) is supposed to be a Muslim. And how did I feel about this supposed puppet Muslim being portrayed as 'the dead terrorist'? I don't really know, I was too busy laughing. The comedy act was funny, like LOL kinda funny. I didn't take offense it, nor did any of the Muslims who my brothers and I shared the video with.

Muslims, if you are one, you know this very well through you local college's MSA skit, make fun of themselves all the time. And we see others making fun of us, alot actually. Some are taken in the LOL manner like above, others can cause us to cringe and become uncomfortable.

But some jokes, regardless of whether they're funny or how liberal a Muslim is, sits in an uncomfortable manner, at the very least.

As some of you know, facial depictions especially of all the Prophets and of God are not allowed in Islam. Period.

But only when a kind of depiction of the last Prophet, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) i.e. the Prophet of Islam, comes out that you may notice noise being made.

Clear point and case, South Park's creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, were given a warning by a group called Muslim Revolution, to be careful or they might end up well...dead. They wrote in their online post , " This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them."
The crime? The Prophet was shown in one of their episodes buttt mindful of Islam's strict position on that, they kept him concealed in a bear suit or a U-Haul truck.

In comes Muslim Revolution's threat or umm... warning . Comedy Central decides better safe and happy. So on a new episode with the depiction of the Prophet they placed the word CENSORED to block the original concealment of the Prophet (the bear suit) and even censor any mention of his name and even some dialogues.

And the world is in Uproar!

Muslim Revolution faces the wrath of South Park's fans who hack their website and have it redirected to a picture that the fans know Muslim Rev's groupie will find offensive.

Jon Stewart sings an entire song dedicated solely to Muslim Revolution consisting of the words: Go bleeep Yourselves!!

(FYI I would die from happiness if Jon Stewart sang a song just for me, just a nice one)

Islam haters find themselves refueled, rearmed, and set out to make their own noise on forums and through comments.

"Hey MUSLIMS, WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?"

Well if you really wanna ask it like that, the answer would be you. But besides that lemme answer some of you questions.

"Chrisitians and Jews are made fun of all the time. So why do you think you are the exception?!"

No we don't think we're the exception. Like I said earlier, there are more than plenty of jokes out and about on Muslims and Arabs.

And we're made fun of and mocked even when it's not a comedic setting (sigh...Hollywood).

But noise erupts when the Prophet is mocked. Here's what it is: Jesus, Moses, Ibrahim etc. (peace be upon them all) while there may be some discrepancies with our beliefs in them, we respect them, we love them, we honor them.

We would not, should not, and could not mock them. When we see shows mocking them (in America) it doesn't settle well with us, but not much is said. Generally America is a Christian country and this is what America's mainly Christian population chooses to allow. Yes I know, separation of Church and State. But God Bless America.

And here we come, where facial depictions aren't even allowed of our own Prophet. Descriptions of him are only through words.

Mocking that is done on Jesus (and I could be wrong here) may also have less of an effect because Christianity has religious pictures and depictions of him everywhere.

While we, don't dare. So not only do we see a depiction of him that we have clearly said NO to, but a mocking one. And you expect a Muslim to be okay with that?

Sorry. That's enough to get a Muslim pissed off.

Enough to get annoyed but would Not excuse a Muslim to take a life or react destructively . The latter half, some Muslims, who are further egged on, turn deaf, dumb and blind to.


"Is that what your REligion reaALly teAches yOu? VIOLENCE? kIlL eveRy peRsoN that upSets You?"

"Um. No it really doesn't. Assuming what Muslim Revolution did was just a warning. It was still messed up. Even the time the Danish cartoons depicted the Prophet, some Muslims acted out violently from anger, keeping in mind there's more than 1.5 billion Muslims out of a 6.7 billion world population, there's a lot more of us that didn't act from that anger.

Some people, like me sit and wonder what would the Prophet had told us to do. Definitely not go and randomly burn buildings and cause chaos or destruction to retaliate against ignorance.

I've heard people say some pretty disgusting stuff to my face or indirectly to me about my beliefs or my Prophet and sure I've wanted to punch people really, really hard. But I don't. Because that's what my religion DID teach me.
It's told me again, and again, and again, and sometimes even to my deaf ears not to act out in anger.

Did you know that extreme anger is even considered unlawful in Islam?

Oh and if I ever do slip, it's not because I've been taught violence through my religion."


So you're probably really pissed of with South Park too? You're probably applauding that radical website?

Uhh Actually no. I actually appreciated the creators attempts at, in their own funny way, trying to adhere to Islam's prohibition against depicting the Prophet. I'm not going to applaud them but I did appreciate it.

And notice that those other times when the depiction was made, it never made it to the media? Not that any of it makes it okay for anyone to publicly mock prominent figures of another's religion. (But we're not here to address that).
But no, I don't applaud the website. Posting up a picture of a dead man and using that as a 'warning' is disgusting and wrong. And as Snake Charmer points out also, that pisses many Muslims out even more.

Anyways, those are my two cents in a 100 dollar bill. Comments, questions are welcome. And on a side note, I apologize for not giving better insight into the whole thing. I don't watch South Park and nor am I ever planning on it. So I have no idea what happened in the episodes in exact details. Nor am I an expert in any form.

Using another's words, it's an unfortunate situation and we can't enforce what is said about Islam but can voice our concerns. "In any case, in the end, it comes down to the problems associated with the creation of mass media in general, and things can & potentially will get much worse as a result of it"

CC, out.


i kill you! From Achmed the dead terrorist:

Even Cheryl's DEAD hamster thinks she's awesome!

As if we dont have enough people writing for this blog and confusing the hell out of you...

Recently, I begged the lovely Cheryl to guest post on Symphonic Discord because Controlled Chaos and I are semi obsessed with her.

That and also because I'm using her to gain more followers.

I kid you not.

Hopefully this plan will work.

So yeah dont just read Cheryl's post and leave, read some of our old ones down below and go through our endless labels list thingymajigger.

Please.

But anyways, without further ado and the real reason you all are here....

I present to you...

CHERYL!




So the other day I opened my inbox to find an email from CA asking me to guest blog for Symphonic Discord, and she included a blog topic, a deadline and everything and for ten minutes I just stared at the email and thought, “man, this is like going to work” except that CA is not paying me at all, so it’s not like work so much as it is slaved labor, which is fine because I live in China and work in a sweatshop, obviously.

Anyway.

My assigned topic is something to do with Muslims, Islam, or how much I love CA and CC, which, let’s face it, isn’t happening (the first two, I mean. I love CA and CC, but not in the creepy Stephen P. Morgan way) because despite spending the last 4 years studying Middle Eastern Politics, I’ve learned nothing except how to make a sling shot out of hair ties, and shoot peanut M&Ms at the idiot asking dumb questions infront of me. Also because talking about Islam is a touchy subject, and I avoid all topics on religion, except for Scientology, which I’m pretty sure was meant for whack jobs, Trekkies, and people who never graduated Kindergarten, but have a lot of money. I mean, the founder of Scientology reportedly said that "you don't get rich by writing science fiction. You get rich by starting a religion" at some alien convention. That should tell you something, except that it doesn't, and everyday completely sane and normal people follow in the footsteps of nut jobs like Tom Cruise and John Travolta, who worship aliens, and who will probably end up killing themselves in some sort of mass suicide like that Heaven's Gate cult that killed themselves because they wanted to survive death by being carried in some UFO or something equally mindless. Like, really? That's how you're going to journey into another world? Well I mean, I guess they sort of did.

Journey to Hell.

But the one religion that surpasses Scientology and all the others on the “this shit is so ridiculous” scale is probably Raelism, which, let’s face it, can’t even be classified as a real religion, and if you don’t know what that is, it’s pretty much a UFO religion founded by some sports-car journalist who, at one point, probably got hit by a car, thus becoming impaired in the brain, and believed that followers received instruction from some aliens who really liked to watch people have sex, and had some super duper machine that could make them appear all godly.


Sex and Godliness? It doesn’t shock me one bit that this religion was made up by a man, who is probably also a rapist.

But no, I avoid all topics on religion.

Sort of.

Oh and I love CA and CC!


If anyone else would like to guest post, you are more than welcome to contact us at symphonic1discord@gmail.com !!!!

Wanting to be where You are

I am currently in the process (an ever slow, long process) of writing my personal statement for application to medical school. I spend way too much time brainstorming. What to write about? Helping my little brother walk and live normally despite the prognosis of past doctors? My great aunt's death? My father's triple-bypass heart surgery? My personal weaknesses? Living paycheck to paycheck and working through school? The time I spent making a portfolio for art school only to realize all of my best art was about helping others? Its so hard to be personal, and so much harder to figure out which life event is important enough to take up the space alloted (6000 characters?). Maybe I'll write three different versions. I have been googling "medical school personal statement" trying to figure out how to put all my crap together. They have tips like "show who you are with stories, don't tell" and "stick to one central theme." It'll make you nervous, I swear.

So thinking about how I could tie things to one central theme, I started thinking about.... GOD of course. My first and foremost intention that ties together all my experiences is trying to please Him... the Big Guy (not to be confused with "the Dude").
I should be honest right?

Reflecting on this and how to convey it, I found a pretty cool (strikingly similar) parallel between the Islamic traditions of Muhammad (PBUH), and the Bible. Islam and Christianity do have many similarities, having the same roots and all, but these verses are great and I wanted to share them with you. To me, it highlights that Muslims know Prophet Muhammad to indeed be one of the Abrahamic prophets, preaching of the same God as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Also, these are beautiful verses about being in the service of others.

Check it out:


The Bible, book of Matthew 25, verses 31-46

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Now for the Hadith qudsi (words from God related to us through Prophet Muhammad), which is what first came to my mind:

The Prophet (Blessings and Peace be Upon him) is reported to have said:

Verily, Allah will say to his slave when He will be taking account of him on the Day of Judgement, 'O' son of Adam, I was hungry and you did not feed me.' He will answer: 'How could I feed you? You are the Lord of the worlds!' He will say: 'Did you not know that my slave so and so who is the son of so and so felt hunger, and you'did not feed him. Alas, had you fed him you would have found that (i.e. reward) with Me.' 'O' son of Adam, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink.' He will reply: 'How could I give You drink? You are the Lord of the worlds!' He will say: 'Did you not know that my slave so and so, the son of so and so felt thirsty and you did not give him drink. Alas, if you had given him, you would have found that (i.e. reward) with me.' 'O' son of Adam, I became sick and you did not visit Me.' He will answer: 'How can I visit You? You are the Lord of the worlds!' He will say: 'Did you not know that my slave so and so, the son of so and so became sick and you did not visit him. Alas, had you visited him, you would have found Me with him.'"

Here, the difference is that the Bible relates these words coming from the "King" or Jesus (peace be upon Him) in the afterlife, who is considered not a god, but a prophet in Islam. The Islamic version is what God will say. In the Hadith Qudsi, it is only about the sick that God says, "you would have found Me with Him." That's where I want to be and that is my true motivation, that I wish to express...

It can be a lot of fun to go between the Bible and the Qur'an and see the similar stories and the abundance of lessons within!