…. I spent at least half of my life believing that there is one person for each one of us. I blame this idea that was planted in my head at an early age on a conversation I had at a very early age with a friend that I looked up to at that point of my life.  This friend said once in a moment of lucidity that we only have one true friend and we only have one true love.  Since I was gullible and easily impressionable, and the words came out of my mentor’s lips from all people, I lived years and years not only believing intensely in that idea, but fighting for proving it is right!  Ironically this friend’s life has been the perfect example of the opposite extreme!  His lifestyle is the proof that this nice idea is only a nice idea!  He has been going out steadily with at least 3 “fiends” because he hates the term girl friend and these “friends” not only know about each other, but somehow they managed to become best friends! With time my friend stopped believe in marriage, he does not think that one person can satisfy all his needs…. But I won’t get into this today. This is worthy of a post on its own!

Couple of years ago, I was talking to a mathematician friend, and I was arguing passionately that we only have one true love, and this friend went into a calm logical explanation that this is mathematically impossible, as there are 6 billion people on this earth and the probability that we fall in love more than once is simply more than 1!!! And I had no other option but to see the error of my ways!

These three conversations came to my mind today in my trip from Aqaba to Amman where I spent it being amused by May Ziadeh’s confused love stories. May was in love with 3 different men. A German guy, with whom she had a brief thing, but he disappeared from her life at a later stage and she ended up going to Germany few times to find him.

Gibran Khalil Gibran, with whom she corresponded for more than 25 years.  The stories say they have never met, although one rumour was that they met once, for one whole night, where they spent it talking على ذمة the person who came up with the rumour. Gibran on the other hand had a very busy love life that was characterized by a series of intense affaires with different partners. At the same time he was corresponding with May, sometimes very emotional and romantic letters, he was seriously dating a woman in Boston, having affaires left right and centre, with several girls and corresponding seriously with another lady!

So since their love story was only platonic it never crystallized into anything concrete, they loved each other without really loving each other. There was no passion, obviously since they never met and if the rumour was true they only spent one night together, that was not passionate enough because it never led to any other nights.  There was also no commitment what so ever because of his bohemian lifestyle and her strict feminist views and belief that love must lead to marriage other wise it is not love at all.  Beside the fact that they both were in love with other people. And whether in my idealistic phase or in my cynical one, the one thing that remains unchanged is that relationships without passion is not the kind of love I am talking about here.

The third man in her life was Abas Mahmoud il Aqad. A man that was the object of my fantasies since I was very young.  His dark skin and good looks, his defiance to the school system that he never finished, yet managed to become Abas Mahmoud il Aqad,  one of the most intelligent and intellectual men in our culture, all were elements that made me completely fancy Al Aqad, even if he is not a person in my life, yes the very same kind of feelings girls have for Enrique Iglesias,  Orlando Bloom or that cute Egyptian actor il sa2a..  May and Al Aqad had a very flirty relationship, where they dated on weekly basis… he wrote her lots of beautiful poems, and she wrote him lots of naughty letters… however, their love died in the crib, because she called him once and the phone was answered by Sarah, a woman that he fancied!

I guess what I am trying to say here, is that love is something very volatile, it comes and goes, and maybe it is time for girls to move away from this Cinderella notion, because I promise human beings are too weak and curious to fall in love only once.

Now let’s try to keep an open mind about this whole interview, there were both positive and negative points in the interview. To start with the positive, she really displayed a lot of courage in saying what no one else dared say. Lets imagine a scenario, a non-Muslim western woman in the Hyatt in Amman,  this imagined lady lost her partner and the love of her life with the explosions… would that person go having positive ideas about Muslims?… lets think of the same scenario in a house in Palestine, where a missile just hit the house and a Muslim visitor has lost her partner and the love her life… would she think positively of Jews?

What I am trying to say is that we Muslims should not fall in the trap of double standards that we condemn all the time… people of the world do think badly of us Muslims. Is it fair? I can’t answer this question… I know that my blood boiled when I heard about the explosions in Amman.

What this Syrian doctor has achieved is made me realize how the world thinks of us Muslims… Now, I know this is not the truth about us, and many Muslims know that Islam is not a violent religion, on the contrary a religion that has showed mercy and leniency all through history. The prophet words were about mercy and leniency, but really is this the case in today’s picture of Islam? Many of her arguments were really and truly valid… her bitter criticism of all these holy people who interpret Qura’an  and say that the murders are justified in the name of religion. Her argument was that in today’s world, Islam which is the religion of a billion people in a world of six billion plus divides people into true believers and infidels, and are called to fight until all people believe, which makes Muslims stand alone in isolation against the rest of the world.

Now to the negatives.  Dr. Sultan did not make any distinction between Islam and Muslims, which I found not fair, what Muslims do, does not reflect the spirit of Islam, especially that these are a minority. She kept mixing national identities with religion in a non-balanced way.  I believe the provocative bit comes from the comparison she made between Muslims and Jews, because her facts were neither accurate nor fair.  are we talking about the land or about the religion?  These are completely different stories. “The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.”

Is this really true? Would the millions of Palestinians s in Diaspora agree with this? Those who were killed and raped and tortured and thrown out of their lands and houses… would they agree? What about the crying and yelling? Please…. What is the massacre most celebrated in the world? How many massacres happened through the history of the world? How many out there would know about the Rwanda genocide for example vs. how many know about the Holocaust?

Another example is when she said: “We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people.” This made me wonder where she has been living the last 50 years.
Maybe they did not blow themselves up, but that does not mean they did not kill people or destroy holly places… as a matter of fact,  there are several events that come to my mind without even thinking; the massacre of Hebron to start with… then the 1200 Islamic mosques that were destroyed in Palestine.  Among the historic mosques that were converted to synagogues or restaurants and bars are Yaquque mosque in Tiberias turned into Hibaquqeu synagogue, Abu Huraira mosque in Ramleh turned into Jamli’el synagogue, Wadi Hunayn mosque also in Ramleh turned into Geulat Yesrael synagogues….etc.
In conclusion, regardless of what she said, I think she would have been a winner if she was more diplomatic in what she said, and if she was fair.  I remember my dad used to tell me as a child, when you are right, you are never afraid… and if we Muslims believe that we are right, we should never be afraid of being questioned,  and we should argue smartly… I insist on smartly, because in this interview the people who were debating were noton equal pace with the doctor.

I am not going to go into the song or video clip… I wondered yesterday why do we try too hard to be Americanized or westernized in everything even in our Arabic songs? This lead me to another question, maybe the reason is rooted much deeper inside us, historically and ideologically… were we always Arabs? and if not when did we become Arabs?

Well, honestly searching this whole Arab identity, made me feel how ignorant I am! I have always thought we were always Arabs and that Arabs and Muslims are synonyms! But that is very inaccurate. So forgive the shallowness of what I will write, I am not intending to give a lesson in history here, and obviously there is much much more to how we became Arabs. Even though these are random, isolated facts, for me they gave me a direction of where to start if I am interested to know more.

Basically, the idea of an Arab identity is fresh of the over, it is that new!! it started among the French educated intellectuals of Syria in the late nineteenth century, in an effort to mobilize both Christians and Muslims to throw off the domination of the Ottoman Empire which was doing really badly. Before that Arab had referred to the Bedouins and the inhabitants of Arabia. And we were known in different names.

During World War 1 the idea of Arab nationalism emerged again as an important idea, this time it took the form of the Arab revolt, with the help of the English. England played a major role afterwards in promoting Arabism in the Middle East, obviously to serve their own interests and so the area gradually became Arab! In 1941, Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Minister proposed the creation of an Arab league, which became a reality in 1945.

The Millions of inhabitants of this area, resisted the idea for a long time, because of their doubts of why they changed from Asians or Africans or whatever other identities we had to Arabs, but this was changed drastically with Gamal Abd Al Nasser, who became a national hero by nationalizing the Suez Canal and leading a war against Israel in 1956… After that the masses embraced the idea lovingly.

If you are curious to know morw, get on the internet to find out more

He is a major pillar of the Arabic political song which motivated thousands of workers and intellectuals rebellious against decadent times and ambitious for better tomorrow. He lost his sight at the age of 5 months, after having contacted conjunctivitis. In 1945, Sheikh Imam met with a great Egyptian musician, Sheikh Darwish El Hariri by whom he was taught the fundamentals of music and Al Muwashahaat. Within a three-year period, Sheikh Imam was ready to perform at weddings and birthday events…

His attempts at song writing was not quite successful, but when Sheikh Imam met the poet Ahmad Fouad Najem in 1962, the two formed a duo where it became difficult to refer to one without the other. Working patiently and under difficult conditions, Sheikh Imam and Ahmad Fouad Najem developed the popular political song which advocates the interests of the poor and working peoples, or in other words, gave birth to an avant-guard hymn to justice.

Their activism led the Imam-Najem pair straight to prison in 1968, where they served three years. They were also frequent quests at Egypt’s state prisons during between 1972 and 1979. In the wake of President Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981, the authorities arrested Sheikh Imam on the grounds that he distributed 50 beer cans to the residents of “Hawsh Kadam,” his home town. In 1984, the Egyptian government lifted the restrictions on his freedom and the ban on his travel abroad.

The music of Sheikh Imam was marked by a form of totality that made his political song travel beyond the geographical location of its origin. It addressed issues other than those of Egypt and the conflicts peculiar of that setting; Sheikh Imam’s music appealed to non-Arab and Arab symbols like the Palestinian question.

Sheikh Imam gave a lot but received almost nothing in return, although his records were sold by the thousands all over the Arab world. Even his friends failed to give him the recognition that he rightly deserves. “Perhaps death is more merciful than the life he spent behind bars or lonely and bed-ridden in his last days,” commented a Lebanese writer. “But Sheikh Imam’s music will survive, played again in Arab times more shining and promising, and that will be the best celebration of his music and art.”

“Allah yir7amoh and yir7am ayam zaman… what else can be said??” as il 7ajeh sitty would say…. I feel I am 90 years old This entry is inspired by one of the comments left on this blog…. So thanks my friend.