Anyway, Sami Yusuf was delayed, and it took him forever to show (maybe he has some Hyderabadi roots).  When he finally did show, he sang some of his more popular hits.  I, with my menacing hood up, sunglasses on while the day had already faded to night, and nonchalant attitude did not join the crowd when it cheered in jubilation.  I simply watched the musician and the crowd to see the interplay.

As for the Chicago crowd, they were fairly dead in their chairs.  It didn’t really seem like they were truly getting into it as may have been the case in Britain.  I’ve been to a few concerts (yeah, I was young once too), and this was pretty tame in comparison.  Actually, I wasn’t too surprised.  Chicago Muslims are pretty hard to motivate to get exciting about anything to begin with.

Somewhere in there, Sami Yusuf apologized for not being able to bring his whole 13 string orchestra (or something like that, don’t flame me, music afficionados).  My reaction at that time was, oh my God, who really cares?  Apparently no one, as I didn’t hear any gripes, complaints, or collective sighing as a result of the musical deficiency.

In a few of the songs, Sami Yusuf tried to get the crowd to sing with them.  It was then that a statement from a comedian popped into my head – “we didn’t pay to sing to you, we paid you to sing to us!”

Or something like that.

Anyway, long story short, fairly anticlimatic.  Popmania?  Not really.  Must be a british thing.  Chicago was like Marley – dead as a doorknob.

Then came the fun part.  Leaving the concert.  As I was walking out, keeping my head down, avoiding the sisters, some kids behind me, no idea who they were, are like, “Hey man, isn’t it a bit dark to be wearing shades?”  So I kept moving, and one, in all seriousness behind me was like, “Hey, are you someone famous?”

Yeah, Darth Maul.

So I’m booking it out of there, and one brother actually recognized me and was like, hey, salaam alaykum Siraaj, but whatever, I just kept going, and the brother was like, “What the…?”  I just kept going.  Which guy would want to be caught attending a Sami Yusuf concert?  Not me.

Aftermath
So a few days later, I received a message on my voicemail from my good friend Farhan (see part 1 of this story):

“Hey man, you were at the Sami Yusuf concert, hahahahahahaha!!!!”

It was going to be a long month.

The Show Begins…
So brother Ahmed was pretty funny.  I don’t remember his jokes, but I do remember them being funny, and I do remember chuckling at a few of them.  After that, the next act that was introduced was Nazeel (sp?) backed up by an-Nur (or Noor).

At first, I thought it would be the Harper brothers I knew, who had their own group called Noor, but it wasn’t them.  The first song was along with music (ugh!), and it was a slower song which basically chorused off “Ya Rahman, Ya Raheem,” a lot of the time.

Their second performance was a bit faster, and it was another song about Allah again.  As usual, I found the nasheeds corny, kind of like Christian rock.  I guess it’s a matter of taste – back in my days of musical addiction, I was into all the mainstream.  Anyway, they finished and left without much ado.  After this, the director of MAS Youth came out and said a few words, and then brother Omar Atiyya came out and announced that it was almost time for Maghrib salaah, so the people would be given time for wudu.

Intermission
I wasn’t sure how the wudu facilities were going to be, so I already had wudu.  I started wandering around til I found the prayer area and was standing fairly close to the front.  Pretty soon, I was in the front row on the extreme right side.  Just before salaah started, Imaam Suhayb Webb showed up, and then a whole bunch of younger brothers put themselves in front of the first row and made themselves the first row.  Not cool.  Worse, I knew almost all of them.  A few people ventured forward, and I did as well.  Whether that was smart or not…

After salaah was over, and everyone had prayed sunnah, I ventured back to my seat, and I crossed another brother I had met a few nights earlier.  Some brother recognized me, but I couldn’t see him (no peripheral vision) and said, “Is that Sir–” and I thought I heard a salaam, but I was out of earshot by that point and the crowd was making lots of noise.  I quietly mouthed out a salaam back and then sat down in my chair.  By this time, a sister had joined our row, and 4 chairs separated us.  Man, why was there mixed seating?  Alhamdullillaah, 4 other brothers came and sat between us.

Amir Sulaiman
So the next person brought to the stage was Amir Sulaiman, an African American poet.  No music, alhamdullillaah.  He has an album, either out or coming out called “Dead Man Walking”.

I enjoyed his poetry recital – very powerful stuff.  Very strong, and straight from the heart.  Unfortunately, the poetry he was reading was not what he wanted to read.  He wanted to read “Dead Man Walking” and I believe another called “Danger”.  How did I know?  Because he made a point of telling the whole audience repeatedly that that’s what he wanted to read them, but he was censored by MAS.  He went on to say that it was in the contract that he signed that he would not read these two poems, and he could not break his word unless they gave him permission.

Of course, everyone wanted to hear it, and of course, MAS maintained their position.  And the brother kept saying over and over, “I’ve read this in Congress, in front of Jews, in front of Christians, and all other types, and it’s only the Muslims who censor this, and this just shows us the state of our Ummah.”

I was interested in knowing what the lyrics were, and actually found his myspace profile online and got to hear it directly from him.  Very cool stuff, and I think I understand why they censored him.  Here it is:

Amir Sulaiman on MySpace

There’s really no vulgarity there, just raw emotion.  It was refreshingly uncensored from the PC polite police pundits that typify North American Muslim dialogue.  I may actually buy the CD

Native Deen and the Bongo Battle
The next act started out with two drummers in an apparent battle of styles.  After this, Native Deen came out and performed a number of songs.  Unfortunately, the music returned, to my disappointment.

I personally didn’t find anything special about their performance and was actually starting to space out.  Even the music didn’t sound all that great.  When I was paying attention, I didn’t hear anything wrong with the lyrics themselves, and it sounded like a lot of encouragement to do good, worship Allah (SWT), never give up hope in His Mercy, and so forth.

Heh, one of the volunteers tried to get a Naughty by Nature Hip Hop Hooray hand wave going on, but the poor kid was defeated by the Chicago crowd’s apathy before he even knew what hit him, and he quickly scurried back into the crowd of volunteers who were simply standing at the stage and watching the show, and occasionally annoying the people in the front rows by blocking them (ha ha!).

Eventually, one of the Native Deen brothers jumped off the stage, into the audience, and ran up and back down the aisles before finding two kids, a boy and girl, whom he brought up to the stage.  They gave the kids free shirts and free CDs (of their own work).  For some reason, and I can’t explain it, that really hurt (the free CDs).  I couldn’t help but think, subhanallah, they’re being caught at such and earlier and innocent age.  Tears began to well in my eyes, but being the testosterone laden dude that I am, I fought it down and continued to watch the show.

At this point in time, it occurred to me that Native Deen seemed to be spending a lot of extra time on the stage.  A lot of extra time.  Somewhere in there, the drummers tried to start up a Queen “We Will Rock You” beat, but that quickly transitioned into another nasheed (can’t seem to recall which).

The songs continued, and one of the members of Native Deen started asking people to pull out their cell phones, open them up, and start waving them around.  Yes, welcome to the 21st century.  We don’t use lighters anymore, we use cell phones.

Anything else?  Ah yes, call me an early 90s dork, but the drummer ripped a riff off of Bell Biv Devoe’s song “Poison”.  Come on guys, you can do better than that.

The notebook wasn’t too big a deal, but I needed to buy sunglasses, and choosing them was no easy feat.  I needed to get a pair big enough to cover some serious real estate on my face and a lot of them looked plain stupid.  As I started looking for sunglasses, my mind wandered to the MTV spoof that was done on the Spider Man movie when he was designing his costume (hmmm, not gay enough).  Finally, my eyes settled on a pair of Oakley ripoffs circa 1996 (the year I graduated high school), and the decision was made (ah yes, just the right amount of gay).

I eventually arrived on the scene at 7pm.  I immediately pulled up my hood, put on my sunglasses, and strolled out of the parking lot.  Everyone else was in short sleeves and jeans, and here I was, totally in a BLACK hoodie turned inside out, black jogging pants, dark black sunglasses on, a black bandana, and black basketball shoes.  This would definitely draw attention.

So I got in line to get in the door, and the person ahead of me was none other than a Riyadh as-Saaliheen student (who shall remain unnamed), chaperoning his sister.  I kept my head down, waited behind his back, and then kept going.  Did he recognize me?  Nuh-uh, so off I continued.

I finally got to the seating area, and there was already one brother on the mic doing his comedy routine (brother Ahmed, our host for the evening).  I thought I’d grab a seat close by, but then realized that this was a sisters section.  I looked out further and all the eye could see were sisters EVERYWHERE.  Sure, there were brothers, but if there was ever a time for a ring in the desert analogy, it was here.  So I went back and asked the volunteers how the area was set up.

As it turned out, the left side (from the perspective of the person facing the stage) was the sisters section, the middle, which was the majority, was for families, and the right side was for brothers.  It seemed, however, that the sisters had even spilled off into the brothers side.

I made my way over to the “brother’s side” and of course, I caught a lot of weird stares from people.  Not surprising, of course, although kind of ironic that the hijabi sisters were giving a guy who covered his head stares.

I sat down, pulled out my notebook, and the notetaking began.

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.

Anyway, so Farhan and I are talking about it for a bit, and he asks me if I can keep him company on the ride to West Lafayette.  My schedule was booked on all weekends with numerous commitments, and the only day free I had was August 6th, a Sunday.

“So what are you doing on Saturday?” he asks me.
“I have an event I have to attend,” I responded uncertainly.
“What event?”

Damn it!  This is exactly what I didn’t want to have to bring up.  It was embarassing as anything ever could be.

“Farhan, the event is so embarassing, I don’t even want to mention it.  I feel very embarassed that I’m going there, but I’m going, and I’ve committed to it.”
“Damn it, tell me what it is!  What the hell could embarass you?  I don’t know anything that could embarass you except that time you were bleeding from your butt.”

He meant the pilondis cyst I had contracted on my tailbone which hurt, stank, bled, and made my every waking moment miserable.  I must have done something really wrong to get that kind of treatment.

“Are you having another kid?”
“NO!  Why would I even be embarassed about that if it was happening?”
“Are you getting married again?”
“NO, and I’m not saying what it is!”

Farhan could be pretty persistent and convincing, and I had my guard up.  To be honest, it was very embarassing.

A week or so earlier, I received an e-mail from the chicago-net mailing list for an event.  A concert.  A Sami Yusuf / Native Deen concert.  And the idea struck me so quickly, I really didn’t give it much thought by the time I had bought the ticket:  go in there, see what the environment was like, and tell it like it is bluntly, no matter what.

Now, why would I care to do that?  If you look at some of my older posts, there was some comparison and contrast between what was said by Sami Yusuf and Yvonne Ridley regarding these concerts.  I wanted first hand info that could be shared and distributed, and the only way for me to do that would be to actually go there, take note of every detail of importance (or annoyance, to some), and then share it.

It sounded like a good idea, but there was one problem.  Besides not wanting to attend the event because music is haraam, I wouldn’t want to be seen there because I’d feel absolutely stupid going to a concert.  Embarassed.  Lowered.  Stripped of dignity.  Argh!  The last concert I ever attended was to chaperone my friend’s little sister and her friend to an N’Sync concert in Milwaukee back when I didn’t know better.  I felt stupid being there, with so many teeny boppers screaming for this pretty metrosexual boy and that one.  And the guys who were there at that concert were just plain gay.  And, I reasoned, with the type of fans Sami Yusuf has, it’ll probably be the same thing (with the women at least).

So I wouldn’t share the event details with my best friend, and I really didn’t want anyone else to know about it either, but I was determined to go and expose the descending of popmania upon Chicago while remaining incognito.

A plan began to form…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15488905/site/newsweek/

Hmm, what else?  Oh yeah, moved to Lombard last weekend, and I’m now an official IFS, Villa Park community member, so that’s really awesome.  I live right across the street from the masjid, alhamdullillaah!

Oh yes, a few months ago, due to the debate I had highlighted between Yvonne Ridley and Sami Yusuf, I actually attended his concert when he came to Chicago.  I took notes, and ridiculous as this sounds, I even went undercover.  I have posts I wrote a while back which are simply unpublished, and I’ll post those experiences in the coming weeks, insha’Allah.

So when we get new software to replace the old, we call it an upgrade, right?  What is it if you go back?  Are you degrading?  Well, my plan to go from Siraaj 1.0 to 2.0 has been mucked up by all the classes, Ramadan, and then moving, all happening so quickly, so I’ve regressed from, uh, 1.6 to, um, 1.25.  Yeah, so once we’re done packing and cleaning this week, it’ll be back to the gym and focused diet again, insha’Allah.

It won’t be so hard, because I spent a lot of time working out last time, taking my time and doing everything right, so a lot of tha muscle is still there.  I expect to do really well, insha’Allah, and will post the results eventually.

1. History of the Khulafaa’ rocked the boat!  Very awesome classroom experience, and the class ran more smoothly than the previous one, which means our qabeelah has improved lots in logistics.  Insha’Allah, this will continue.  We also had Shaykh Muhammad for a whole week to ourselves, and we had a lot of fun hanging out with him.
2. 10% fat?  Man, I have to get back on the workout =)  I get these off weeks, but if I’m not careful, they become off 2 weeks, and then the bad eating habits set in again.  I’m starting to feel a bit flabby on the sides, but my arms and chest seem to have no problem developing further.  A bit perplexing, but with the additional carbs in my diet these days (a lot more), the flab is starting to feel like it’s piling on on the sides and the tummy.  Feels kinda gross.  Back to low carbing it, insha’Allaah.
3. “Jeopardy may be my destiny, but I’m not leaving without giving the best of me.”  Very inspirational statement, and I hope insha’Allah I fulfill it (the second part, would like to avoid the jeopardy).
4. Qur’aan and Seerah – haven’t been reading much Qur’aan, and I’m pretty weak in my Seerah knowledge, so these are my current projects of study for the coming months ahead.
5. Loves Notes – Sept 15th, 16th, and 17th, at the Wyndham in Chicago.  Should be lotsa fun yaar.

That’s it for now, toodles y’all!

George Galloway Embarasses Sky News

Date: Aug 18th – 20th, 25th – 27th

Class: History of the Khulafaa’
Instructor: Muhammad Alshareef

Wyndham Hotel
400 Park Boulevard
Itasca, IL 60143

Latest Info: http://www.slaveofallah.com
Register: http://www.almaghrib.org/enroll.php