I love Islam and cream soda

إِنَّ مِنْ أَزْوَجِكُمْ وَأَوْلـدِكُمْ عَدُوّاً لَّكُمْ Verily, among your wives and your children are enemies for you - Quran 64:14 Lemme, tell you a story. First a prologue:   My mom and I had a horrible relationship as I grew up. One day, I made the resentful comment that she "wasn't even my real mother".  I really had no idea how asinine that comment was until my father sat me down and deconstructed my pseudo-intellectual assessment of my mother. I will save the details for my book - but I learned that children are hardly able to give a just estimate of their parents - even into adulthood. It is always up to parents to bear that cross - and bear the witness where kids can't see. ***** Once upon a time: A man went to jail facing charges for crimes that he did not commit, He sadly realized he was fighting a case that everyone but a handful of people thought he was actually guilty of.  That realization made him even more determined to fight and beat

Most states give money to people leaving prison. But some formerly incarcerated people say it's often not enough to meet their basic needs. EXCERPT: When Taj Ashaheed was released from prison and dropped off in downtown Denver with $100 of gate money on a debit card, he used it to buy a cheap cell phone. Then he went to Subway and ordered a meatball sub. Ashaheed was able to stay with a family member for the first month or so after prison. But for people who aren’t so lucky, housing is an expensive and immediate need, said Sean Taylor, the deputy executive director of the Second Chance Center, a reentry organization in Colorado.Taylor, who himself was released from prison and received $100 in gate money about eight years ago, said the shelters his center can refer people to cost around $60 a week, and a bad motel might cost about $350. For Ashaheed, $100 felt like a “token gesture” on the part of the state, not like a real attempt to help people get on their feet. “It fel

By Brother Taj   - June 2019 In 2007 and 2008 while working as a political market research manager I had the privilege of having then–candidate Barack Obama as a client. However, I would have voted for him anyway on the basis of one consideration: he was Black. Voters who would admit to this motivation are decried as reverse-racist and a traitor to the idea of post-racism, but given a national culture that rides on 4 centuries of enslavement and exclusion, no apologies are needed. We have had enough of inhumane consideration and treatment. Enough of institutionalize bigotry. Enough of racially motivated violence and murder. Enough scourging by drugs and brutal policing. And, enough of mass incarceration. It should all cause Black Folk to rise up in protest, refusing to perpetuate anything similar with our own hands. What more effective repudiation to white supremacy and its insidious effect, then for a Black person to refuse to shoot, rob, assault, rape, cheat, s

Islam (and by extension, Arabia) has always been connected to (and saved by) Black people and Africa. First, notice on the map that the most populated regions of (western) Arabia are bordered by Africa. Among the first/original tribes of people called "Arabs", the majority of these tribes originated in the southern region, especially Yemen. The Qahtanite tribe, whose progenitor is held to have originated the Arabic language, after whom it is named, has a grandson that all Yemenite tribes trace their lineage thru.Muhammad also traces is lineage thru the Qahtanites. Yemen has always been connected to African peoples - dark ones from Ethiopia. For centuries, Yemen was run by the Abyssinian/Aksum (Axum) empire, (think, modern day Ethiopia and Somalia - as well as Sudan, since Aksum conquered the Kush empire). For centuries not only were Yemenis a mix of cultures but an ethnic mix of Semitic and African peoples. It was these dark tribes that migrated northward as far a

#aSipOfIslam ...the Arabic word we generally use for prayer is " salat ", which at it's root has many different meanings, including "connection" (like how a hinge connects a door and a doorway) and "attention"... Salat therefore implies a connection between man and God whereby both turn attention to each other. Man seeks God's mercy, help, healing, forgiveness, etc. And God listens and responds. In Islam salat is a formal prayer ritual that is to be performed repeatedly and perpetually. Doing as such creates a constant connection between man and God and also instills a constant sense of paying attention to God. One of the worst things that we do, besides not actually praying, is when God gives us the things that we ask for, we become distracted buy those achievements/gifts and we forget to continue our connection and attention. Even though we get what we asked for we must continue to ask for the things that we need and or we must be sure

I'ma share something with you that most brothas are hesitant to. FIRST POINT: I hear a lot of you lamenting the lack of availability of brothas - and there seem to be a couple factors: 1)brothas are interested in non-Muslim women, and not faith-loving women like yourself or 2) brothas are abusive hypocrites and not worth marrying. As a single Muslim, I can tell you that no one is perfect and that even Muslims are flawed-to-the-bone human beings. You should not let the very human-ness of brothas make you revel in dragging them while you sit at home nights nursing a cup of chamomile tea.. And some of them are not really doing that - I see many a sister forego their hijab for a night out at the club. I actually don't have a judgment for that - hell, I work at the club myself... What I do raise an eyebrow at is who I see sisters leave with: that d-boy whose predilection for pork chops and Hennessy is overlooked for the money stack in his pocket.. It

As I come up on my 49th year and my 26th as a Muslim, I'm reflecting on the amazing fact, and a fact that a lot of our older grumpy uncles and aunties don't realize, that our future lies at the feet of our youth. I became Muslim because of Hip Hop, Black Culture, and Prison - three things that most of the Muslims of the world do not want to even recognize as sources of Islamic culture itself. Despite their ignoring, discriminating, and even abject horror, droves and droves o f people enter into the religion through these very avenues. In our pop culture, Islam is extremely prevalent - something that would make Trump and his ilk lose a lot of sleep if they even knew. If you watch the last episode of season 8 of The Walking Dead then you know that Rick's quote at the end comes from a Hadith of the prophet Muhammad. If you listen to the Jon Jones interview with Joe Rogan at the end of his last fight, you heard him make an Islamic exclamation - the same one made in ASAP

This year, inshaAllah (God willing) I am going to launch an anti-violence initiative based on the jailhouse culture of settling beefs by entering an empty cell and engaging in fisticuff negotiations - as opposed to resorting to using homemade weapons, etc. I'm old school in the belief that in the event that people feel they have to resort to physical confrontation to settle a conflict, that a line be drawn at the use of guns. In my personal opinion, most of today's wannabe  thugs are emotional weenies who are too quick to pull a trigger, further compounding their immature state of mind with life-shattering violence and death. (I blame this on skinny jeans). In jail, the idea alone of walking into a small space one-on-one was enough to make a lot of dudes think twice to avoid behaviors that lead to the thunderdome, and for those who had to get down, they got to walk away, with only a bruised ego if they lost, less thinner skin, and often more respect for the person they ju