i've learned that several of my relatives in pakistan think of me as an extremist. i'm no extremist! i only pretend to be an extremist... no i'm kidding!! i don't pretend to be anything. ...i AM quite traditional. meaning: ...1- i acknowledge the traditions of my parents and ancestors; ...2- i appreciate those traditions; ...3- i try to understand them; ...4- i try to follow those that seem to be relevant to making my life better.... by better, i mean: more grounded and happy!
* i do think that there are some major forces at work that are causing instability in the world around us. among the desi muslims i know in america: some people find security from this instability in the outward symbols of religion. some find it in superficial indo-pak culture. for me i guess its tradition. real tradition.... but my tradition and religious identity was not by choice, i just grew up in it. and sometime around the age of 18, i began to appreciate it. but i also try to understand the "why and how" of it, so that i can make the necessary adjustments to it, to keep it relevent to my life as an american. this includes my religion. i try to gain knowledge of it. i try to follow it, but am not a zeleot for all of its outward symbols. maybe, the relatives in pakistan think of me as more traditional because they compare me to themselves. in my trips to pakistan, I found that I had read much more than many of them about our religion and culture. They form an active part of my conscious identity. For many in pakistan its passive, being from india or being muslim is taken for granted, its only natural.... but because i'm more passionate about my religious identity then them, I can see why they would think I was MORE traditional and hence probably extreme. But a Fact remains... My side of the clan really IS more traditional. I think of a family chart i created several years ago.... There were a bunch of Naqvi sisters a few generations up: one married an Alavi, one married a Kureshi, one married an Abassi, and one married an Usmani... Abbasi and Usmani were my great grandparents...Usmani was Mufti-e-Azam of Hyderabad and very religious, much more traditional then any of the other names i mentioned. Its something I'm proud of. My grandmother is his daughter. My mother is his grand daughter. the force...uh, i mean the tradition, runs quite strong in my family.... But i don't think this make me extreme. It DOES mean that i grew up with much more religion and tradition than other relatives, Eventhough i was in America, most probably because I was in America.... ahhh, and this leads me to another possible reason why i guess they think of me as more traditional then i am. Most of my relatives have a stereotype of how liberal a pakistani becomes in America. I don't fit that stereotype. plus, there is a slight difference how i am among my elders and how i am among my close friends. i maintain a certain amount of adab when i'm with elders. so this porbably adds to their perception of me as more traditional then other americans.
