Thursday, June 21, 2007

Umm Yasmin's Muslima Blog: Dervish

I know I'm generally fairly critical of Islam. But I think if you look at my posts on Christianity (my own religion of course) I am pretty critical too.

So in the spirit of fairness, and because of her bravery and kindness, I want to recommend to everyone this blog by Umm Yasmin (that means that her daughter's name is Yasmin/Jasmin).

She represents more positive aspects of Islam. Though I will say that if she lived in a truly Islamic society she would never have the freedom to keep a blog like this. In other words, her freedom to blog comes from living in a non-Islamic society.

God bless her and keep her and guide her into all truth.

BTW: May I point out that traditionally in Islamic society that could really not use the name "Umm Yasmin"? You only get to use that matronym when you have a MALE CHILD. Hence my name, "Abu Daoud"--Daoud being a male name of course since I have a son.

Read up and post remarks. Let you words be salted by kindness and charity always.

Dervish

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you kindly for promoting my blog :)

One slight correction, however. The use of "Abu" and "Umm" as a kunya predates the Islamic period.

Whilst it tends to culturally be used for the first-born son, there is historical precedent of using the female name for the kunya such as Umm Habibah (a wife of the Prophet); Abu Hind (a companion of the Prophet); Umm Jamilah bint Qutbah (of the period of the Tabiun); Zaid ibn Abu Anisa (who related hadith) and so on.

Abu Daoud said...

Thank you, but this is not a custom that has been used within Dar al Islam in the last (say) 1,000 years as far as I know.

But it is not a problem, I think it is good for you to disagree with curent Islamic customs. Please, disagree all you want!

Leita irrab yubaarikik.