Umm.... Al Ham Du Allah?

Yesterday, Brethren went dark. Quite literally. It's "Energy Conservation Weekend" or something like that, which means that whichever dorm building reduces it's energy consumption the most gets an ice cream party. Thus, our hall has gone dark, as everyone is trying to turn off the lights as much as possible, even to the point of turning off the bathroom lights, permanently. This is hard to get used to, since there's no windows, and the door is blocked off from the rest of the bathroom by a wall. This means that when one is taking a shower, one does so in total, absolute, and indisputable pitch black darkness. It takes some getting used to, but it's actually kind of cool.

In addition to conserving energy and learning to shower while blind, This week I got to struggle with the impossibility of having a reading light by my bed. I had a lamp at the beginning of the semester, but it's developed a nasty habit of turning off 30 seconds after I turn it on and refusing to turn back on. I then borrowed another lamp from Brett Borland since he wasn't using it, only to find that it had a short somewhere and sputtered like a candle, rendering reading impossible. God's way of telling me just to go to bed? Maybe.

Wednesday was Student Appreciation Day, which was really cool. The whole day was devoted to trying to make us feel special with free ice cream, professors who wore "I love Covenant Students" t-shirts, and better food in the Great Hall. Ironically, by replacing the omelet bar with a French Toast bar and normal food with chocolate chip pancakes, Chartwell's compelled me to eat cereal for breakfast. I'm not complain though, since lunch was fantastic and dinner was steak.

Rehearsals for Niada are going swimmingly (haha...pun...yeah...) I still need to learn to dance, which is a bit daunting, but compared to last week I feel like things are coming together really well. We have most of the set, lines are pretty much memorized, and costumes are coming together. Plus the opening scene looks really cool when synced with the music and dancing that Alysha's put together.

This afternoon I got to go to a special lecture put on by the Pre-Law Society (and advertised by Gareth Jones) by Salem al-Hasi, a practicing Muslim and eminent Islamic Scholar, who spoke on the idea of Modern Sharia Law. It was fascinating, and I'm going to summarize it in a moment, but before I do, I want to mention an interesting incident just before the lecture started. Dr. Haddad, my Arabic professor, was speaking with Mr. al-Hasi just before we were allowed into the lecture hall, and she called Jeremy Mosley, aka Corporal, over to demonstrate his Arabic. After he'd said hello, he literally grabbed my from the water fountain and interposed me between him and Mr. al-Hasi. It would have been hilarious had I not been completely unable to remember how to say hello. I finally managed to blurt out "Marhaba! Ahlan wa Sahlan" which means "Greetings, Welcome." but which at the time for some reason I thought meant "Hello! Hello!" and was unnerved. I then said "Kuwayis?" meaning "How are you?" he said he was well and asked me how I was doing. I stood there for a moment and then, seizing upon the correct phrase, exclaimed a bit too enthusiastically "Al Ham Du Allah!" Praise be to God! He laughed kindly and complimented me and Corporal on our Arabic, and then the lecture began. Heh heh.

Basically, Mr. al-Hasi told us that, much like the media's portrayal of Christian morality, Sharia law is mostly misrepresented in today's culture as a Machiavellian medieval code of law, much like the Spanish Inquisition. Instead of this, he defined Sharia (which means "stream of life") and said that it stemmed from 5 main sources. First, anything the Qu'ran says is instantly allowed to be Sharia, however, he made sure to clarify that a lot of assumptions that people make about how the Qu'ran is interpreted by mainstream Muslims is incorrect. For example, "Kill the infidel" is interpreted under the larger "theme" verse that says basically: "Kill those who attack you, and kill them no more than a limit, for Allah hates those that exceed this limit". So a modern Muslim would read that verse as saying: "Kill a nonbeliever who kills your own, but do not escalate." He even used the example of black powder, which was banned by Islamic teachers when it was first discovered because they were afraid that it would cause innocents to die.

Second, Sharia law comes from the Hadiths, or sayings of Muhammed. He explained that while the Qu'ran is universally agreed on, the Hadiths are not. Many "fabricated" and "weak" hadiths were composed during the years after Muhammed's death, because, as he put it: "One of the best ways to get someone to do something is to tell them that god wills it." The third source of Sharia law are the Consensuses, which he said are exceedingly rare because they require all of the various leaders in Islam to agree that something needs to be in Sharia.

Fourth comes reasoning anlogy, which means that when the Qu'ran is unclear on a specific issue, Muslims examine the Qu'ran for something which they can use to reason out the Qu'ran's teaching. For example, the Qu'ran forbids alcohol, which it defines as a liquid with a certain smell, certain taste, and which causes one to lose control of their actions. However, when drugs first entered the scene, some Muslims argued the Qu'ran did not forbid them, since they did not fit the definition. However, since they cause a loss of control, the Islamic leaders used the reasoning analogy to argue that they qualify as Qu'ranic alcohol and thus were banned.

The fifth and final source was the Purpose of the law, which Mulsim scholars agree is to make life better for those in society. Basically, if a law does not make people's lives better, it's a bad law. I'm not sure how totally mainstream al-Hasi is, but still, it was really fascinating

Overall, it was really cool, and I felt much more informed about what Islam is and what Muslims believe. I was glad I went and I'm thankful that Gareth put the whole thing together.

That's about all I have to say about this week, so I'm going to wrap up. Oh, I forgot to mention that I'm trying to get my hands on an alarm clock that wakes you up with the call to prayer and has spikes around the snooze button. :) :) :) Until next week! Ma'a Saalama, and props to my sister for getting to octofinals (and possibly more at this point) in debate!