How to leave the most peaceful religion in the world

 The caged virgin is an amazing book by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, unfortunately the book is banned in Malaysia. When the book was held at customs for inspection, I ironically wanted to recite Surah Yaseen for 40 times so god could blind the enemies of the book! Although I didn't, I think Allah was on my side and the book landed safely in my hands 🤣.

Leaving Islam is the toughest journey for anyone who was / will be born to this religion! 1.8 billion followers demand a strong reason for leaving their "most peaceful religion" without realizing the "capital punishment" for leaving a religion contradicts the notion of a peaceful coexistence within the faith.

Not everyone can make the great escape! Ayaan's sister was living with her in the Netherlands, but soon she regretted all her actions against her religion and went back to Somalia to revert back to her religion. She was beaten to death regardless!

When Angel Gebrael told Mohammad: "you're the chosen one and god wants you to be his prophet", asked him to keep it as a secret for a while! Slowly he instructed him to spill the beans with his wife, then his cousin! Whoever wants to leave Islam, needs to make their leave in a more secretive way! Ayaan wrote a 10 step plan in her book!

When it rains, it pours

 I enjoyed reading the Blue Sky Mansion novel. It’s about the journey of a Chinese girl called Mei Choon from China to Penang, Malaya. After her father’s death, her life takes on a dramatic turn.  

Her widowed mum couldn’t bear the living cost of two children (her and her younger brother) and had to sell her to a wealthy family at age of 6 without telling her. The wealthy man dies shortly. On funeral day, she sneaks inside his tomb and, not knowing once the tomb was sealed, there’s no way to get out of there, she was trapped!

Later on, Chen Tong opens the tomb in search of golden bowls disguised in bronze and saves her, taking her with himself and his wife to another city in China not knowing the city was just hit by a plague. After Chen Tong’s wife passed away due to the plague, Chen Tong reveals to Mei Choon that her mum sold her and if she travels with him to Penang, Malaya she can have a better life and access to education, not knowing what is waiting for Mei Choon in Penang. 

Chen Tong asks one of his relatives to take care of 16 years old Mei Choon after his death, but that person betrays him and sells poor Mei Choon to a brothel. Mei Choon second attempt to escape the brothel was successful. After the great escape, she ties the knot with a gambler whose friend tells him that he needs a wife for coping with his gambling habit. They live 30 years happily ever after until he dies in a Japanese air bombing. 

We don’t know what happens to Mei Choon after the Japanese invasion in Malaya, but the author assures us as she overcame multiple adversities in her life, she survived the Japanese invasion as well! 

A refugee’s life is full of adversity! One always feels like when it rains, it pours! Someone like Mei Choon if lucky enough, can escape hardship but someone like her friend Ying Hua might end up hanging herself to end all the pain and suffering.

Kidnap Shakespeare to get band 9 in IELTS

I’ve enjoyed reading Antigone play by Sophocles in this January on my way to my hiking location, the only book that I managed to finish in less than 1 day. That’s why I thought I’m ready to start reading Shakespeare and took on the Antony and Cleopatra play but turns out it’s all Greek to me. If I had a time machine, I wished to travel back into the past, kidnap Shakespeare and lock him up in Pontefract Castle dungeon to death. May the blame be on him for not getting band 9 in IETLS 😆.

 

The origins of wealth and inequality

Galor believes the origin of inequality goes back to planting wheat or rice! Planting wheat requires ploughing by masculine power while planting and watering rice requires cooperation of a big group of people. Comparing Afghanistan with Malaysia through this lens, cultivating wheat is popular in Afghanistan and we can see that bread and flour is an integral part of Afghan cuisine. Malaysian weather on the other hand, is perfect for cultivating rice, that's why most Malaysian food is rice-based, even their desert and sweets like pulut. This might explain why women suffer less in Malaysia compared to Afghanistan.

I am reminded of my reading opium cultivation in south Afghanistan, a source of Taliban's income. Opium cultivation, drug trade, mines and minerals, foreign donations from Gulf states like Qatar and UAE and conflict and capturing military posts are their main source of income, and these are mostly run by men. They become richer under the eyes of Americans in Afghanistan compared to the first time they were in power.
According to Galor, industrial revolution led to public access to education, development and technology in the west. Now, the Taliban are back in power. They probably think that as they made money and gained power without women, women don't need education and work, and this means in the long term, Afghanistan will never become an industrial country.
10 minutes after I finished Galor's book on 29^th January and digesting the disappointing facts; my mother called me. My family lives in a village near an industrial park in the west of Afghanistan. Some women and young girls from that village work in the factories. When I was in Afghanistan, most men in that village were shaming on other men who let their mother and sisters work in those factories. I asked my mom if those women were still allowed to work there? She said: Yes, the factories are run by private individuals and when the Taliban came to power, they gave special cards to those women stating they are allowed to work. So anytime they pass any checkpoint, they can show their cards. That was a slight relief.

Note: It's an old post from my Facebook. 

Two afternoons in the Kabul Stadium

I skipped lunch for 40 days to save money just to order this amazing book from Australia last year. The book had been traveling by sea from Australia to US, then to Malaysia for 3 months. I finally received it on 31^st January 2023. 

Tim Bonyhady discusses about how clothes, carpets, and the camera shaped Afghanistan in this book. Two afternoons in the Kabul stadium refers to one afternoon in 1959 when women appeared unveiled and in western dresses at Ghazi stadium for the celebration of Afghanistan's independence. The second afternoon is in 1999, the day when Taliban executed a woman called Zarmeena for the first time at Ghazi stadium. Since 1996, when the Taliban took over Kabul for the first time, they are obsessed with changing the dress code for women especially.

Now they are in power again, still imposing new dress codes for women and banning them from going to schools, universities, work, travel, public bathrooms, gyms, parks...

Note: It's an old post from my Facebook. 

Reading more books, spend less time in social media

In the past 2 years, I didn't have enough time to read books. This year I set "reading more books, spend less time in social media" as new year’s resolution. I've deactivated my Twitter this year but missed writing short texts. That's the reason I'm here* (Threads).

It's mid-July and so far, I've completed reading 7 books starting this year. Currently I'm reading 3 books, will post about them later. I may write about:

• What I've learnt from them?
• What was the reason that I started reading them?
• My favourite parts of the books
• Any parts of the books that remind me of something.
• Any inspiration and maybe other things

Note: I’m hopeless at writing reviews about books, maybe I try later. I also use this platform for practicing writing in English. Please feel free to give me feedback, thanks in advance for your help. 

Note*: I had to create this blog due to character limit in Threads.