Laylat Al Qadr: the night of Destiny, Revelation, Power, Predestination; call it what you will but this one night, which is the pinnacle of spirituality in Ramadan, has an immense psychological and cleansing effect on me. When the Prophet (pbuh) said ‘seek it’ I kind of get what he meant. In the name of God, [...]

Now I am a typical male who knows just about nothing when it comes to fashion, specifically what women choose to wear. However I have to admit that when the fashion industry starts producing and promoting clothes for women with 23½-inch waists, it’s a cause for concern, no? Is anorexia a fad now? I thought [...]

Almost 19 months of blogging later I’ve reached a hallmark moment here at The Black Iris with 1,000 pure quality posts. Thanks to those who have stuck by me, be you the loyal reader, casual reader or new reader. Your some 5,600 comments have been a pleasure to read and much appreciated by me. So [...]

I just read about this wonderful cultural event in the Jordan Times today. Madaba, one of my favourite cities in the country that is also known as the ‘city of mosaics’, is holding a cultural festival of sorts known as Layali Madaba (Madaba Nights). From what I’ve read it seems to be an attempt to [...]

The Islamic veil is not a subject I like to discuss on my blog mainly because it leads to so much disagreement from all sides of the spectrum that I would just rather avoid it. Never has a piece of cloth caused so much panic, fear and irrationality in the Islamic and non-Islamic world and [...]

In light of recent debates on Jordan’s Red Sea Film School being open to everyone including Israelis as well as a recent decision by the Israeli army to ban new Palestinian students from entering Israeli universities, I thought this was an interesting article… When Jordanian student Said Saleh Abu Ghosh chose to pursue a Master’s [...]

This is one crazy story about the family of Iraqis that died recently in Amman under mysterious circumstances. The following is what happened… Amman – Jordanian security authorities have established that a love affair between a Jordanian and an Iraqi woman prompted the man to set his lover’s house ablaze at dawn on Wednesday, killing [...]

Lately I’ve noticed these public service type commercials on a local Toronto TV station that says: “parenting isn’t easy, but it shouldn’t hurt”. It’s an anti-spanking campaign. This naturally got me thinking because spanking is a common tool used in raising children everywhere in the world. I’m not a parent and I might be wrong [...]