A Trip to the 1980s

This past weekend, I went to Houston, TX for some seminars. It is always weird to go back to Houston because this is where I grew up. Every trip I make reminds me of why I am glad I left in the first place. Don't get me wrong, it has changed quite a bit since I left to go to UT Austin in 1989. The Oilers were still the football team, both they and the Astros played in the Astrodome (at one point one of the largest Dome's in the country). And the Rockets played at the Summit. Also when I left, the major mall in town was the Galleria I&II. Now they have added III and IV. But the good parts about leaving were that I no longer had to put up with the intense humidity (which I got a dose of this weekend) and the never ending mosquitos. There is the Gulf of Mexico for those daring enough to go swimming in it. I remember in High School when we used to go, we would come out of the water literally covered in a thin layer of oil!!!!!

Also when I left Houston, the Muslim community was quite small with one main mosque and various apartments throughout the city used as prayer halls. The Muslim community in Houston is quite unique in that the original founders kept a hold on all the new mosques coming up. They formed the Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH) and now this organization has quite a few mosques in Houston spread out all over divided into zones. It is a large organization and many times it is hard to know who to contact to get what done.

Houston is a city with a large Muslim population, in fact, they have city councilman who is a Mulsim from Pakistan. His name is M.J. Khan and is the father of someone I know who went to UT after me. I was speaking to a friend who helped him campaign and he went door to door letting people know that they should vote for MJ Khan......he told me that many peoples response was not what he expected.......they didn't comment about MJ being a Muslim, or MJ being a Pakistani American. they were surprised that MJ was running for office after such a great career in Basketball and a not so great one at Baseball. They said they were sure to vote for such a great athlete as MJ!!!!!! Of course my friend thanked the politely, stepped outside their houses and laughed all the way to the polling station. I am not really sure if that is why MJ Khan actually won or not, but I think it says something about who Americans truly want their politicians to be. It reminded me of a movie with Eddie Murphy who plays a con man named Thomas Jefferson living in Florida who decides to run for Congress and actually wins because of his name. He never appeared in debates, never gave interviews, and relied on the ignorance of regular Americans as to whether he was the real Thomas Jefferson. He did end up winning in the movie, but then again, it was based on voters in Florida!!!!! Home to "Jeb" Bush and also home to the famous "hanging chads" of the 2000 elections.

Anyway, my initial point of mentioning the Muslims in Houston was that I think we need to make more trips down there. Like LA and SF and other large cities, they have many mosques and Islamic centers. However, unlike the other cities, the Muslims, from what I hear from Muslims in Houston, are very apathetic. Not many activities for Muslims and when there are some, not many show up....maybe its the heat and humidity!!!! With this in mind, I was happy with the turnout for the seminars we conducted and based on them, think we should do more. Hunidity or no humidity, people still have to have their money invested!!!!

Why The Name

Since I am traveling so much across the US and I report to everyone about my travels, I thought I would try to make my writings a little bit more interesting to read plus, what else am I supposed to do on a long plane ride back to Seattle!!! That is why I am going to begin writing my experiences under this title (I am sure you can guess what it is based on). If you have a better title, please let me know. Before I begin, I wanted to comment on my pen name: Babi Batuta. "babi" is the word that my children call me. It means my dad. When Abdallah was born, I really wanted him to call me what I called my dad, Baba Jani. Since I was a new dad, I was naive and thought that if I said this to him over and over, he would eventually say it. Well, he tried, but what stuck was a combination of the two words. When he started saying this in public, people thought it was cute, so it stuck!!!! is this how words get created?

And I chose the last name as Batuta, for the famous traveler Ibn Batuta, who lived a few hundred years ago during the days when the Islamic Empire stretched from Morocco in the West (arabic for Morocco is maghreb which means west) to the Bangladesh in the East (no, Bangladesh does not mean East and Maruf can tell us what it does mean). He traveled across the empire and wrote about his experiences from what he saw to the people he met. His writings are a great historical and sociological account of people of his age. Hey, maybe one day I can publish my writings as well :)