A Woman Called Palestine

I do not know what my future is. You wanted "Girls of Riyadh" but you got "banaat sans borders" with me, the girl without a country. Will I make hirjah? Will I make Hajj?????????? If it is written anywhere, Allah let me know, so I can start packing my suitcase. [Correction: suitcases; I was not raised in a system for "carry-on" and "light"--- may more humble men humour me my past conditioning and call it my feminine nature and may God Himself forgive me]. That is why I decided to call this blog "Beduoin Princess" because when I became Muslim and made my shahada I gave up the idea of borders and nations, races and tribes, caste systems, classes and countries---and I found that all to be quite healing. If you want to know where I am from and what my race is (as if that mattered) I am just Muslim. My nation is Al Islam, and my country is this Ummah whevever that is (and they are). We have no great leader yet, someone to unite us and bring us back to the original and beautifully sincere deen of our beloved Prophet (S.A.W) because all our so-called Islamic leaders want now is to hold onto power (for the means of money or land or the original sin of pride) any way, means, and justifcation how. Insha'Allah if no man steps up to the plate, we will just have to raise our children to be that great man who is great enough to simply want to be good (a simple servant of Allah), but that responsibility is none of mine as of yet, for as to children, I have none to raise. I am not so very old, so insha'Allah we'll see. I was not a very good daughter to my mother, so maybe Allah is sparing me. As to that mother, I was born to the People of the Book, who long ago forgot what they had writ, and I was named a feminine variant of a name that means "Christ-Bearer". I bore little of Christ I think, but much has changed since I came to Isam, and I decided that name [and I do believe naming something gives it the power of the meaning of that name and deters or directs the development of that being it describes] no longer fit for me. After one Saudi boy played at naming me (Jana one suggested, Jahanum the other---"I like the sound of Jahanum best" I said) that was all out of the question, and in the end I named myself, or rather the name came out to me, Palestine, a place that technically doesn't exist and whose government is unacknowledged by the world. I do not know why, but something has carried me since I first heard the adhan, and I want to carry something back to make the weight of that for whomever lighter. I know I have a passport, but it seems so funny to have in my hands, the passport of any country, and its visa stamps spilling out the pages, as if men could own this land, as if a people could claim such a vast demense. When even if you try to hold a palm of sand, if you have ever tried, you cannot close it close to keep... The sand spills like golden streams to escape you if you ever have that greed. So I will remain a staunch Beduoin in my heart, whether city building or tent claim me. All this belongs to Allah. SubhanAllah.