May We Never Forget

In remembrance of those whose lives were lost and in gratitude for all those who responded and volunteered, we pause our blogging for the day. May God bless you all and may God bless America.

Photo credit: ShareFaith

Blogging from A To Z April Challenge - Letter P

Only two more days left in the third week of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. I spared you the linky list this week considering the somber feelings in my home state on Monday after the Boston Marathon bombings. The third victim has been identified and officials continue their investigation into locating those responsible for this heinous attack.

Last night, hockey returned to Boston as the Bruins hosted the Buffalo Sabres. The night started out with a moving tribute shown on the big screen, followed by the singing of our National Anthem by all those in attendance. You can watch it in the video below. I watched it last night on TV and I still can't get through it without crying.



At the end of the game, the teams met at center ice and saluted the fans by raising their sticks together.

It seems fitting to discuss another attack on our soil that caught us off guard. On December 7, 1941, Japanese plans attacked Pearl Harbor at 7:55 AM. Another wave hit an hour later. Most of the American planes on Oahu were wrecked. Eight battleships, three cruisers, and three destroyers were put out of action, and the battleships Oklahoma and Arizona were destroyed. We lost 2,323 U.S. servicemen.

A day that President Roosevelt called a "date which will live in infamy," signaled the entry of the United States into World War II. Men signed up to serve this country in droves. I knew two of those men later in life. Uncle Phil told me how he and his brothers rushed to sign up. His older brother, Stanley, was interrogated as a spy during the war. Seems when he signed up, the recruiting officer misspelled his last name, substituting an "i" for an "a". When Stanley was cleared, he legally changed his name to the incorrect spelling.

The emotions have run raw this week as Americans come to terms with the hatred of our way of life. But we, like those in Boston, remain strong. Whether it be at Pearl Harbor, or in New York City, or in Boston, we remain strong. We will not allow terrorists to take that from us. God bless the U.S.A.!

Remembering September 11th

No matter how much time passes, we will never forget.

We will tell our children about the patriots who died.

We will tell them of how an entire nation cried.

They'll learn that there was no left or right.

Only a nation united, coping with strife.

We'll teach them no one wins in a world filled with hate.

We'll teach them now, before it's too late.

Remembering September 11th

c) 2001 The Record, (Bergen County, NJ).

Just as those who are old enough to remember where they were when they heard of John F. Kennedy's assasination, people of our generation can vividly recall what they were doing when radios and televisions shared reports of the Twin Towers being struck.

I was home with my month-old daughter, still on maternity leave. The phone rang and my husband asked me to turn on the television to let him know what news stations were saying. He was at work and gaining access to the Internet was almost impossible with so many people trying to find out the latest details of what was happening in New York.

When news came of the attack on the Pentagon, I called my husband back and immediately felt that we were at war.

I would find out later, that my brother-in-law was supposed to be at the World Trade Center that morning, but at the last minute his meeting was changed to an alternate location. Our family was spared...but many others were not.

As our country honors those whose lives were lost on that fateful day, I personally hope that the many families affected by this horrible tragedy have begun the road to healing; that they have found some way to carry on after the unexpected loss of their loved ones; and that they may know the peace and comfort only God can provide.

God Bless America!

Patriot Acts by Steven Clark Bradley--Book Review

Hidden away in an Alaskan prison, serving time for a crime he never committed, Colonel Fisher Harrison thinks of revenge. His government forsake him and his Special Ops buddies and no one was meant to survive. If Fisher gets out of that hellish place, the man who put him there is going to pay.

But that man is now President of the United States and seemingly untouchable; until the Islamic Republic of Iran and radical American militia groups join forces, and President Christopher Tate knows that Colonel Harrison is the only man who can stop a planned covert nuclear attack. Will Fisher help the government who forsake him? And if he does, will he make it out alive?

Patriot Acts by Steven Clark Bradley is an intense, fast-paced modern day thriller that leaves you clinging to the edge of your seat. Bradley's wealth of experience comes alive in this story of a covert nuclear attack planned by two deadly forces. Having traveled to thirty-four countries and having been a freelance journalist in Iraq, Israel and Turkey, Bradley creates a realistic and scary portrait of potential terrorism issues home and abroad.

Strong and complex characters fill this novel. From Fisher Harrison to Christopher Tate, from radical militia leader Len Garret to Jamie O'Rourke, the President's Chief of Staff, every player is alternately sympathetic and despicable, likable and easily hated. Bradley has done an excellent job of creating multi-faceted characters whose actions move this story along at a fast clip.

That said, the overuse of the exclamation point in the dialogue rendered its effect useless, and a good editor may have helped making some of the transitions easier. Since this book travels back and forth in time, the choppy transitions occasionally left this reader with a moment of confusion until she figured out the character was recalling past events.

Patriot Acts by Steven Clark Bradley will be a hit with military fiction fans, lovers of fast-paced thrillers, and anyone interested in the War on Terror. This is definitely a book worth checking out.


Title: Patriot Acts
Author: Steven Clark Bradley
Publisher: Cambridge Books
ISBN-10: 1-59431-693-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-59431-693-7
SRP: $17.95 (U.S.)

Saffron Dreams by Shaila Abdullah--Book Review

Saffron Dreams by Shaila Abdullah is an eloquently written and moving story of a Muslim woman living in America, whose world is turned upside down on September 11th.

Arissa Illahi is a Muslim artist and writer living in New York City with her husband Faizan. Expecting their first child, they are happy with life. But on the morning of September 11, 2001, Faizan would go to work in the World Trade Center...and never return.

Always free to live as a Muslim in America, after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Great American Melting Pot doesn't seem to blend so well. People who greeted Arissa with a smile before that fateful day, barely look at her. Feeling adrift after her loss, Arissa wanders through the days awaiting the birth of her unborn son, a son Faizan would never hold. The discovery of her husband's unfinished manuscript may be the key to her survival. And perhaps by finishing Faizan's legacy, Arissa will redeem a race.

If ever there was a book more eloquently written than Saffron Dreams, I would like to see it. The words simply fly off the page and float into your consciousness; their power touching you in a way like no other book might ever touch you again. The struggles of being a 9/11 widow and a Muslim, come together in a moving story that will find you filled with every emotion ever experienced by a human being.

Abdullah's masterful storytelling draws you in from the very first moment and does not release you until you've turned the very last page. Anyone who has ever loved and lost will be touched by this heartrending, yet triumphant story of one woman's difficult journey to pick up the pieces of her shattered life in a country that has suddenly put her and an entire race under a microscope in order to make sense of a monumental tragedy. The descriptions and details put you right alongside Arissa so that you are totally captivated by her world, her dreams, her struggles, and her triumphs.

The stunning cover art must be seen up close, as it is even lovelier and more striking in your hands than what you see posted here.

Saffron Dreams is destined to add more awards to Abdullah's portfolio. This is a must read book for 2009!


Title: Saffron Dreams
Author: Shaila Abduallah
Publisher: Modern History Press
ISBN-10: 1932690735
ISBN-13: 978-1932690736
SRP: $19.95 (U.S.)

Shaila Abdullah Shares the Impact of 9/11 on Ordinary Muslims in Saffron Dreams

Today's guest blogger is Shaila Abdullah author of Saffron Dreams. I am in the middle of reading this book and I can't put it down. Look for my review of this touching novel...coming soon.

Shaila's turn:

There was a time before September 10, 2001, when I could jaywalk down 6th street in downtown Austin and blend in with the locals. I was colorless, stripped of ethnicity, even faceless at times. After all, diversity is what added to the flavor of the city––that and a certain cross dressing gentleman in thongs who once ran for the city mayor.

That was before some of the locals exchanged their world vision glasses with compromised ones and took a serious look around. What they saw terrified them. They were in a minority in their own land with a group of people they knew little or nothing about. It scared them that the color of their skin matched the ones who took the towers down. After all, didn’t all Muslims prostrate in the same manner as the attackers? Did they not worship at mosques as well? Then came the lumping-of-all-potatoes-in-one-sack epiphany. If all Muslims prayed the same way, surely they must share the same ideology as the terrorists. As the overly-corrected vision of the locals turned blurry from the daily input they received from the media and those around them, they learned to live in fear. With every change in color in the national security threat level, their hearts sank even more. Could they trust the friendly Muslim neighbor across the street, the one who greeted them every morning but sported a beard and whose wife wore a headscarf? The day after 9/11, Muslim-Americans woke up to a new America––the one where they were no longer regarded as locals but outsiders and lumped together with the fundamentalists. They struggled to know themselves, only to lose themselves in the interpretation of others.

The geopolitical concerns that have drawn Islam and the West into many conflicts since 2001 have also generated a thirst for fiction and nonfiction, with a Muslim angle. At a time when much of the world associates Islamic culture with oppression and terror, the new genre is tackling such universal themes as love, hope, and women's issues.

Saffron Dreams is the story of basic human desire to be accepted in society, no matter what your background, ethnicity, or race. The tragedy of 9/11 was a great shock to the American psyche. Some of that anger was directed towards those who shared the race and religion of the terrorists, especially those who publicly exhibited symbols of their faith such as veils, beards, even their own names. In the terrorist attack of 9/11, the shards of glass reached far and wide wounding the hearts of Americans who had been very accepting of the melting pot their country had become. The event put them at odds with a community that had come to this country with very simple objectives: to work hard and lead honest lives.

In Saffron Dreams I have attempted to capture how ordinary Muslims were affected by the tragedy of 2001—the silent majority who lead very normal lives and are law-abiding citizens of this land. They are the ones we never hear about because their lives are too ordinary to be the subject of the nightly news. The protagonist of my novel, Arissa Illahi, is a veil-wearing Muslim artist and writer in New York. Pregnant and alone after the tragedy of 9/11, she discovers the unfinished manuscript of her husband and decides to finish it as a tribute to him. In the opening scene, the protagonist discards her headscarf, which has become almost a scarlet letter for her following the attacks of 2001. In a courageous attempt to take charge of her life, she transfers “her veil from her head to her heart.”

Where the media instilled fear in the heart of the nation about Muslims, lately they have also attempted to learn the true purpose of Islam by bringing in renowned and respected scholars and researchers to interview. There still needs to be more dialogs with positive role models of Islam like His Highness the Aga Khan who stresses upon the importance of pluralism in a civil society and speaks about the clash of ignorance. Others like Karen Armstrong and Dr. Ali Asani who time and again have taken center stage to correct some of the misconceptions that exist around Islam. Much work still lies ahead but as with any wound on the psyche of a country, it will take awhile to heal. There is a great need in the U.S. for various religious entities to come together and build bridges of understanding and tolerance to find a common ground—work that Dr. Eboo Patel is doing through the Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core.

And so, as the readers scramble to buy yet another book about Muslims in an effort to understand that group, they need to be clear about one thing: even the followers of mainstream Islam can’t tell them what drives terrorism. We are as clueless as the rest of the people but keep on reading. You might learn a thing or two about the true face of Islam.

Saffron Dreams Virtual Book Tour '09

From the darkest hour of American history emerges a mesmerizing tale of tender love, a life interrupted, and faith recovered. Arissa Illahi, a Muslim artist and writer, discovers in a single moment that no matter how carefully you map your life, it is life itself that chooses your destiny.

After her husband's death in the collapse of the World Trade Center, the discovery of his manuscript marks Arissa's reconnection to life. Her unborn son and the unfinished novel fuse in her mind into one life-defining project that becomes, at once, the struggle for her emotional survival and the redemption of her race.

Saffron Dreams is a novel about our ever evolving identities and the events and places that shape them. It reminds us that in the midst of tragedy, our dreams can become a lasting legacy.



AUTHOR'S BIO:

Shaila Abdullah is an award-winning author and designer, based in Austin, Texas. Her creative work focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of Pakistani women and their often unconventional choices in life. Her debut book, Beyond the Cayenne Wall, is a collection of stories about Pakistani women struggling to find their individualities despite the barriers imposed by society.

Among other accolades, the book won the Norumbega Jury Prize for Outstanding Fiction and the DIY Festival Award. Abdullah received a grant from the Hobson Foundation for her new novel, Saffron Dreams which is about the trials and tribulations of a 9/11 Muslim widow.

Abdullah has written several short stories, articles, and personal essays for various publications, such as Dallas Child, Web Guru, About Families, Sulekha, Women's Own, She, Fashion Collection and a magazine of the Daily Dawn newspaper called Tuesday Review, etc. She is a member of the Texas Writers' League.

A Pakistani-American, Abdullah is also a seasoned print, web, and multimedia designer as well. See a complete bio at http://www.shailaabdullah.com/bio.html.

TO SEE WHERE SHAILA AND ARISSA STOP NEXT, VISIT http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/