Pakistani Actually [part 2]

The doc about the Youth Worker turned wannabee filmstar was interesting in many ways and worrying in others.

Here we see a young man desperate to be a Hollywood star but clearly hindered by his religion. He is obviously sincere towards his community in that he is a committed youth worker and one would consider him to be an excellent role model for young muslim boys and teenagers, except that he is all too willing to compromise his religion and culture to further his acting dream. I for one would not allow him anywhere near my kids as he is sending out totally confused messages. In one scene he is talking to a room full of young Pakistani kids and telling them to be good citizens, to listen to their parents etc etc and in another we see his poor mother telling us she has seen his film and that her daughter covered her eyes when the nude scenes came on. Poor woman, in punjabi we call such sons "besharam" or "batmeez" or "behidayata" meaning without shame or without decorum and misguided.

I feel sorry for the "Atta Boy" he is quite clearly a confused individual, confused about his religion and what Islam requires of him. The good thing is that he does consider himself a Muslim and he seems to think that it is a very strong part of his identity as a Pakistani but it is not as important to him as he thinks it is.

The mere fact that he starred in a film in which, he strips off and engages in inappropriate behaviour with a young lady on numerous occasions and whilst in the state of post-copulatory contemplation discusses what Islam is about and what Christianity is about is quite disgraceful. Then in the documentary he apologises if that film caused offence! If that wasn't enough he then takes on a role playing a homosexual character in another film in which he stipulates a condition that he won't kiss another man and then we proceed to see him engaging in a simulated "bollywood" style screen kiss with another man.

I think he is under the impression that the ends justify the means, case in point is his attending a party where Glasgow's most elligible bachelors are auctioned off to young ladies for a date, all for charity. In Islam the ends never justify the means, noble ends require noble means.

I can't help wondering if this particular documentary was an attempted PR excercise for the "Atta Boy". My sincere advice to this brother is stop putting your religion second and don't sell your soul and your akhira [afterlife] for hollywood which you seem intent on doing. If you are desperate to be an actor then at least don't take any role that comes your way, especially roles that will seriously compromises you as a Muslim.

wa'as-salam

Mas'ud
www.masud.co.uk

Sister Ginny Quick's House Fire

as-salamu 'alaykum,

I have been informed that Ginny Quick, her brother and his wife have suffered a house fire in which they lost almost everything. Some concerned bloggers have got together to run an appeal for her and her family. Ginny Quick is a Blind Muslima and a convert to Islam. She writes about the fire in her blog.

Umm Zaid has details on the house fire and appeal on her Modern Muslima Blog.

Any help anyone can extend to her will be rewarded in the akhira and it is at times like these when brothers and sisters come together.

Our duas and support are with sister Ginny and her family.


wa'as-salam

Mas'ud
www.masud.co.uk

BBC2 Saturday 5th March 2005: Pakistani, actually.

I tuned into this series of documentaries and I am must say they were interesting. Navid Akhtar's piece in particular was very relevant and I imagine that people like me up and down the country identified with his findings and could draw direct comparisons to their own communities. I had hoped for a more fuller program about this subject. For those who have been following my blog will know that this is a pet "peeve" of mine, masjids that do not serve the needs of the coming generation and are completely stuck in a sub-continent mentality. One thing I found rather amusing was when one of Navid's interviewees from mosque committee blamed Navid (and by extension the rest of us) for not going to mosque to learn Urdu and Arabic! What some of our older generation don't realise is that our masajid are not set up to handle the teaching of Arabic beyond reading the script but without meaning. And I personally think that teaching Urdu at the expense of teaching Arabic as a language is a waste of mosque resources. Whilst Urdu is very rich in religious literature, I doubt that many people who would learn Urdu from a mosque will use this skill to approach religious material. I fully acknowledge that Urdu is important to preserve our cultural identity but not at the expense of our religious and spriritual progression and our identity as British Muslims. Let's face it no matter where we have originated from, we are here to stay and this is as much our home as anyone else's.

wa'as-salam

Mas'ud
www.masud.co.uk

Apple or Microsoft? OS X or Windows?

as-salamu 'alaykum,

Having now had an Apple PowerBook G4 for 5 months now, I had visions of throwing out my PeeCee. Well so far I haven't thrown it out and don't think that I will. Being from a Unix background I love OS X, it is inherently much much more stable and secure than Windoze will ever be and I can't imagine having to reinstall OS X because the kernel (similar to the Windblows registry, but far far more stable!) is corrupted because I just installed something.

Being someone who tinkers around with a website or two, I inevitably use Dreamweaver and Fireworks and these are much better on Wincrows than on OS X. I prefer Photoshop on the OS X than on the PC and I do enjoy using my Mac even though I grudgingly concede that the XP interface is easier to navigate around.

So there you have it OS X is far superior to Windows in terms of security and stability but Windows is easier to get around.

wa'as-salam

Mas'ud
www.masud.co.uk