Children's Corner

Once upon a time, there was a bird in a cage who sang for her merchant. He took delight in her song day and night, and was so fond of her that he served her water in a golden dish. Before he left for a business trip, he asked the bird if she had a wish: “I will go through the forest where you were born, past the birds of your old neighborhood. What message should I take for them?”


The bird said, “Tell them I sit full of sorrow in a cage singing my captive song. Day and night, my heart is full of grief. I hope it will not be long before I see my friends again and fly freely through the trees. Bring me a message from the lovely forest, that will set my heart at ease. Oh, I yearn for my Beloved, to fly with Him, and spread my wings. Until then there is no joy for me, and I am cut off from all of life’s sweet things.”


The merchant traveled on his donkey through the dense forest. He listened to the melodies of many birds. When the merchant reached the forest where his bird came from, he stopped, pushed his hood back, and said, “O you birds! Greetings to you all from my pretty bird locked in her cage. She sends tidings of her love to you and wants to tell of her plight. She asks for a reply that will ease her heart.


My love for her keeps her captive with bars all around her. She wants to join her Beloved and sing her songs through the air with a free heart, but I would miss her beautiful songs and cannot let her go.”


All the birds listened to the merchant’s words. Suddenly one bird shrieked and fell from a tree brunch to the ground. The merchant froze to the spot where he stood. Nothing could astound him more than this did. One bird had fallen down dead!


The merchant continued on to the city and traded his goods. At last he returned to his home. He did not know what to tell his bird when she asked what message he had brought. He stood before her cage and said, “Oh, nothing to speak of “no, no,”


The bird cried, “I must know at once”

I do not know what happen-ed,” said the merchant. “I told them your message. Then, one of them fell down dead.”


Suddenly the merchant’s bird let out a terrible shriek and fell on her head to the bottom of the cage.


The merchant was horrified. He wept in despair, “Oh, what have I done?” He cried, “What Have I done? Now my life means nothing. My moon has gone and so has my sun. Now my own bird is dead.”


He opened the cage door, reached in, and took her into his hands gently and carefully. “I will have to bury her now,” he said; “poor thing is dead.”


Suddenly, the moment he had lifted the bird out of the cage, she swooped up, flew out of the window and landed on the nearest roof slope. She turned to him and said, gratefully, “Thank you, merchant master, for delivering my message. That bird’s reply instructed me how to win my freedom. All I had to do was to be dead. I gained my freedom when I chose to die.”


“So now I fly to my Beloved who waits for me. Good-bye, good-bye, my master no longer.” “My bird was wise; she taught me secret,” the merchant reflected.

LIVONIA, Michigan -- At first glance, this new girl on the block doesn't give Barbie much of a run for her money. After all, Barbie is everything Razanne is not -- curvaceous, flashy and loaded with sex appeal.


But that's exactly why many Muslim Americans prefer Razanne, with her long-sleeved dresses, head scarf and, by her creator Ammar Saadeh's own admission, a not-so-buxom bustline. For Saadeh, the doll not only fills a marketing void but also offers Muslim girls someone they can relate to. "The main message we try to put forward through the doll is that what matters is what's inside you, not how you look," said Saadeh, who set up Noor Art Inc. with his wife and a few other investors. The Livonia-based company, founded about seven years ago, sells the Razanne doll and a number of other toys geared toward Muslim children. "It doesn't matter if you're tall or short, thin or fat, beautiful or not, the real beauty seen by God and fellow Muslims is what's in your soul," he said.


Razanne has the body of a preteen. The doll comes in three types: fair-skinned blonde, olive-skinned with black hair, or black skin and black hair. Her aspirations are those of a modern Muslim woman. On the drawing board for future dolls are Dr. Razanne and possibly even Astronaut Razanne. There's also Muslim Girl Scout Razanne, complete with a cassette recording of the Muslim Scout's oath.


What sets Razanne apart from her few competitors is that she "holds a global appeal for Muslim girls," Saadeh said. That image encouraged Mimo Debryn, of West Bloomfield Township, to buy the doll for her daughter, Jenna, four years ago. "Razanne looks like the majority of women around Jenna," said Debryn. "She loves that doll and always took care of her, giving Razanne a special place in her room, treating her with respect. "Jenna never tried to take Razanne's hijab (head scarf) off, though Barbie was usually stripped naked," she said as her daughter, 11, curled up on the couch and smiled.


Global appeal

In the United States, Mattel, which makes Barbie, markets a Moroccan Barbie and sells a collector's doll named Leyla. Leyla's elaborate costume and tale of being taken as a slave in the court of a Turkish sultan are intended to convey the tribulations of one Muslim girl in the 1720s.


"It's no surprise that they'd try to portray a Middle Eastern Barbie either as a belly dancer or a concubine," said Saadeh, adding that countering such stereotypes was one of his main aims in developing Razanne. Mattel didn't respond to repeated calls seeking comment.


Laila, the Arab League's answer to Barbie, offered girls of the league's 22-member states a culturally acceptable alternative to Barbie's flashy lifestyle. But she never made it to store shelves. Sara and Dara were launched a couple of years ago -- Iran's version of Barbie and her beau, Ken. The two were offshoots of a children's cartoon in Iran. But Saadeh said those dolls are more "cultural and don't have mass appeal in the Middle East." Saadeh hopes to capture that market. Razanne will soon be marketed in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and make greater inroads in Southeast Asia.


The doll is sold throughout the United States, Canada, Singapore and Germany. Saadeh would not reveal the doll's sales figures, but he said retail sales over the company's Web site account for a majority of the almost 30,000 dolls sold per year. Prices range from $9.99 for a single doll to $24.99 for a set like Teacher Razanne that includes a briefcase and other accessories. Saudi Arabia's religious police recently declared Barbie dolls a threat to morality, complaining that the revealing clothes are offensive to Islam.


Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries likely would be attracted to Praying Razanne, who comes complete with a long hijab and modest prayer gown. Lest people think that she's all about praying, there's In-Out Razanne, whose wardrobe also includes a short, flowery dress she can wear inside the home, in view only of men in her family.


"Razanne represents to Muslim girls that they have options, goals and dreams and the ability to realize them," said Debryn. Jenna, who recently donned the veil after much soul-searching, said Razanne makes her "feel more comfortable about being a Muslim girl."


(Courtesy: AP)

They are a triumvirate of sisters and are poets in making. Young, bubbling with enthusiasm, they are prolific with pen. The eldest is yet to step out of her teens but has nearly 100 poems to her credit. The second has 60 in her repertory while the youngest is not even 10 and takes pride in having penned 40.


Three budding poets in a family and each reaching for their parents’ ears makes the task of bringing up the daughters an awesome task for Dr. Fouzia and husband Mr. Wajid. ‘Poetry oozes from every corner, and they stop at nothing’, says Mr. Wajid.


But it was all in their genes. Mother Fouzia Choudhury teaches Urdu at Maharani’s Women’s College in Bangalore and is herself a poet. Genes had to merely undergo a linguistic transformation from Urdu to English. Of the three Wajid sisters, eldest Qhudsia, a 12th grader, is planning to publish her collection. Some of these poems have already been published in children’s magazines like Student’s Planet and Young Poet. She even recited a few poems at the conclave organized by the Poets International in Bangalore.


Fouqia is a ninth standard student and had her major break in the world of letters in 2004 when her first poem was a published in a magazine. She mainly deals with tragedy. Both are being followed closely by Maria, 12 who too has six published poems to her credit.


Says Dr. Fouzia, encouraging words from visitors propelled the sisters into creative writing and poetry provided them the best vent. But they dabbled with drama, painting and sketching too. Currently, they are holding a summer camp at their home in Palace Guttahalli for the neighbourhood kids. Very shortly the three sisters will be playing a lead role in a drama being directed by famous Kannada director Naresh Chander Dutta.


Reproduced below are two poems:

The Best
By Qhudsia Wajid

Sun beams with smile,
Cool breeze blow,
Lake dance to the tune,
People play cricket,
Birds sing in an elevating mood,
In the weather so perfect
You can’t find this scene, anywhere else.
Because this is India the best

****************************************

I am the Sky
By Fouqia Wajid

Am I not a sky
Am I not a sky
My leg is in the moon
My hand is till the mars
Am I not a sky
Yes I am the sky

One day, a powerful king of a nation had a dream. In that dream, he was riding a horse and roaming through the countryside. He noticed in his dream that he had strayed farther until he had become lost in a dense jungle. He stopped his horse to make some sense of the direction from which he had come and was trying hard to locate his way back to his palace. Suddenly, he noticed, a ferocious tiger coming towards him. In order to save his life, he leapt from the horse quickly on a branch hanging above his head and decided to take refuge in the shelter of the tree, and sat on the branch.


The tiger had noticed all this and the animal came to the same tree and sat comfortably beneath the tree waiting for his prey to come down. The tiger knew that it had more patience than the human being on the tree and it would only be a matter of time before the king would try to escape from him. At that time, the animal decided that he would kill that man and make a meal out of him. On seeing that the tiger had settled down for a long wait, the king decided to test the branch on which he was sitting to make sure that it was strong enough to bear his weight. But, as he looked along its length, he was filled with fear, for he saw two mice - one white and the other black - were gnawing merrily away at the end of the branch - which he was sitting - where it joined the tree.


Filled with terror the king looked below him to see where he would fall when the branch gave way, and whether the ground below was hard or soft. But here, he was met with another terrifying sight for there was a huge python waiting for him with its jaws wide open, looking at him eagerly waiting for him to fall. The king trembled with fright because he was now in a desperate situation.


As he clung to the branch, his mind raced with different possibilities about what he should do in order to save his life. Suddenly, he not noticed that there was a honeycomb filled with honey above his head and it was dripping drops of honey just in front of him where he sat on the branch of the tree. He stretched out his tongue to catch the falling drops of honey for he was both hungry and thirsty from the long ride, and as he did so, the honey had an amazing effect on him. It was delicious, sweet, and refreshing that he soon became completely unmindful of the dangers that threatened him from every side. The tiger, the mice and the python, were all forgotten as he became more and more enchanted with the taste of the marvelous honey.


In a short time, of course, the mice gnawed through the branch of the tree, and he fell to the ground, and the tiger killed the king, and he died with a happy smile on his face, and the python devoured what was left of him.


The king woke up from his dream, his body drenched in cold sweat. The same day, he narrated his dream in his court and asked the learned men of his kingdom to tell him about the interpretation of his dream. The learned men of his court were as puzzled as the king about his dream and try as they may, they could not come up with a satisfactory explanation to the dream the king had witnessed on the previous night.


At last, a learned man, who was knowledgeable about the Holy Qur’an and Traditions of Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) stepped forth and sought permission from the king to offer an explanation. The king without wasting a moment granted him the permission, as he was also curious to find a satisfactory explanation to his dream.


The learned man addressed the king and the court: “Know O’ king that the tree which you had climbed for safety symbolizes this world, the dense and the dark material universe. The tiger represents death, and the python represents the punishment in the hellfire in the Hereafter which comes to every wicked person on this earth. And, the two mice are day and night, which most certainly shorten the span of a man’s life. The honey symbolizes the world with its fleeting pleasures, in which we become so completely absorbed that we forget even death without discovering the true purpose of our life.”


The king was astonished by this reasonable interpretation of his dream, he asked the old man about how he had come to the conclusion that his dream exactly signified what he had interpreted for him. At this, the learned old man told the king that he had dared to attempt the interpretation of the dream on a verse from the Holy Qur’an, which reads: “Know that the life of the world is but play, and diversion and pageantry, and boasting among you, and rivalry in wealth and children: as the likeness of vegetation after rain the growth whereof dumbfounds the sowers; then it dries up and thou sees it yellowing then it will be scattered. And, in the Hereafter is a grievous punishment, and forgiveness from Allah and His good pleasure, whereas the life of this world is naught but the stuff of illusion.” (Holy Qur’an 57:7) The explanation convinced the king. He resolved that he would not waste his life in the pursuit of worldly pleasures, but would strive hard to lead a righteous life and govern his kingdom properly, seeking only the pleasure of Allah in all his actions, and devoted the rest of his life to walk on the path of Allah working towards the welfare of his subjects and helping the needy and the poor with his charity.

“ He is the King, the All-holy, the All-faithful, the All-preserver, the Almighty, the All-compeller, the All-sublime.” (59:23).


Allah has all pride and glory. He is beyond need and is without imperfection. Pride, an exclusively godly attribute must never be claimed by human beings. Allah hates proud people who elevate themselves above others. “ Allah does not love any man who is proud and boastful.” (57:23).


Punishment for pride in this life is spiritual blindness: “ I shall turn away from My signs the arrogant and the unjust, so that even if they see every sign, they will not believe in it.” (7:146).