The Manrilla Blog | Life. Art. Religion. Culture.

I have to give it up. Madison can be, at times, a really fascinating place. I suppose this could be said about any place, really. But I’m not in any of those other places right now. I just got back from the Weary Traveler, having had a very rousing conversation with Omar. Omar is an ethnic Somali who grew up in Egypt. He’s from Aswan. I just happened to sit across from him tonight and we struck up a conversation. Now, I haven’t really had a chance to speak Arabic very much since I left Michigan. Most of my Arabic-speaking friends still live there. Arabic is a beautiful language and it’s something that I pride myself on for being able to speak, read and write very well. I even taught Arabic for a period of time. So here we are, two Muslims, one a foreigner, one an American, sitting in a restaurant in Madison Wisconsin, Talking about all kinds of things! We talked about Islam, the state of Muslims today. About Qur’an, hadiyth, the Prophet and many, many other topics. Omar was shocked to find an American who not only spoke his language but who might have even had a better grasp of the grammar than himself! I think the most shocking part for him was to find an American Muslim who is informed on the religion as well. I have not done a lot of deep thinking about religion in the past several years. Photography and art have been my passions. But I can feel a change coming about again. A desire to assert myself in the religious dialog. I had a great time tonight bringing up topics out of my past that I was very passionate about; I came to find I am still passionate about those things. We made a tentative agreement to get together next week and continue our conversations in Arabic. In sha’ Allah, I hope it to be true.