Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Letter to Julia 20120229

In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful.

Oh dearest, we humans are such limited creatures. Our minds and hearts can only absorb so much before we take it out on the rest of our body. Why push until we break? The best we can be is on the edge, insyaAllah. Which is why we cannot cram the Qur'an into our brains as quickly as possible: it is meant to be revealed and absorbed gradually. It took prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) 23 years to receive the entire Qur'an. Let alone lower ranking mortals like us. Let's try to slow down, my Julia. Let's try to enjoy our love and life together.

The locals here aren't too concerned about portraying sophistication in their personal attire, but we are a humble bunch. Apparel sales here should be geared towards giving visitors a souvenir to take home that they can wear. Now, there is no real, distinct brand name when it comes to Islamic women's apparel, not one that I know of anyway. Like I said before, there is only one type of dress design varied using different patterns of fabric, or people just patch up Western apparel with a headscarf. Western fashion at its highest is usually a house bearing the name of a fashion designer, right? Chanel, Gucci, Christian Dior, Versace, etc. There are no such fashion houses in Islamic women's apparel. Not that it would be easy to establish one. Snooty buyers would turn to the famous western fashion houses, right? Entrepreneurs in the business would need a leg up to be established as a fashion house. A trend. An opportunity, rather. Like our rock and roll situation, insyaAllah. Of course, the other fashion houses could take this opportunity to establish credibility as designers of Islamic women's apparel. They would have to be Muslims, though. Don't you agree?