Exposed (part 2)

Incognito Dude
“Oh, look at you, you’re going to the concert to do your big expose on your blooog!”
“Look, I’m going to do something good, insha’Allah, and I’m even going to disguise myself.”

My wife was teasing me, of course, because she knew exactly how I was going to disguise myself, and it all seemed over the top, just to write a blog entry.  I agreed, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get the job done.

“So, you think you’re soooo famous that everyone is going to recognize you?  You think you’re soooooo important, huh?”  my wife continued to diss me.

“Nevermind that, let me show you what I’m going to do,” I began, but she already knew what I had in mind, for the most part, and was not impressed.

The basic problem I faced was literally my face – I had to find a way to hide my beard, and as much of my face as possible, so that I would be unrecognizable.  Was that possible?  I wasn’t sure.

My solution was the following:

1. Wear a hood, and shove the beard into the hood.
2. Cover the forehead with a bandana
3. Sunglasses to cover the eyes

In essence, I would look like a police sketch of the Unabomber before he was caught.  I’d definitely stand out, even amongst Muslims, but I’d rather not be known and stared at funny than known to be at one of these concerts.

And it’s not that I couldn’t explain away my presence at the concert.  It was just take too much time, effort, and discomfort – a whole lot more than I was willing to deal with in that situation.  Better to be the undercover brother.

Not only that, but as someone who strongly advocates against music, people who would not get a chance to speak with me would consider it hypocrisy that I was attending the concert after bashing music so much.  I’m reminded of the story of a really good brother, Farooq, whose rep was tarnished by something like this.

At a bar called “Where Else?” on campus, one of his friends said, let’s just stop in for a moment, there’s someone in there (there are all Muslims we’re talking about) I have to talk to about something, and then we’ll be out fast.  Poor Farooq thought, well, it’s my last 2 weeks here at Purdue, I’m graduating, and we’ll be in and out fast.

As soon as he walked in, all the Muslim drinkers, clubbers, and womanizers recognized him, and the first immediate feeling was shame.  Everyone knew Farooq to be a good guy, and religious, and felt embarassed to be seen by him.  That, however, quickly turned to anger and snide sarcasm (look at this mullah, coming to the club, masjid hypocrites!).  Of course, they never said it to his face, they just smiled meekly and asked him what he was doing there.

Come next Friday, Farooq was giving the khutbah, and of course, the clubbers are all back in the masjid telling everyone, “I went clubbing with that guy last week, he was with me at the bars!”  Leave it to the retarded non-practicing FOBs to take something and blow it out of proportion.

In any event, I didn’t want the same thing happening to me.  I didn’t want people seeing me there and  either thinking I was a hypocrite coming to enjoy the show, or that I condoned this behavior, if they didn’t know my position.

I basically did not want to be associated with the event.  My interest was purely cultural – what’s going on with our Muslim youth?  Is this popmania thing for real, or was it blown out of proportion?  What messages are being sent out by the people organizing these events?  This is what I was interested in.  And the only way to really do that was to get down in the trenches and get my feet dirty.

This seriously sucked.