A Flailing Monkey Defying Gravity: October 2008

So for some reason I got a very odd piece of mail at work today. Posted from Alexandria, Egypt, I received book entitled A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam. Odd. The front has a picture of Mecca, lit up beautifully, and the Koran, circling around the world and flying towards me. Another flyer, "Seekers of the Truth" was also included as well as a small card from Dr. Muhammad S. Oraby encouraging me to think about the path my life is on.

2 comments here:

1- Who pulled the prank and got this stuff sent to me?

2 - Is is funny that the first thing that crossed my mind when I opened this were: "Bad cover design for the booklet but the pamphlet has a really nice paper stock!!"??

Yeah. I'm a dork.

BUT if you are curious about Isalm, feel free to visit http://www.islamic-message.net/English/index.htm which is the parent site of C.I.M.S. Corp. in Alexandria, Egypt - the people who posted this lovely packet of materials to me. C.I.M.S.= Conveying Islamic Message Society.

Irony: the book, A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam, was ironically printed in Texas in 1997 and even has its own Library of Congress number in front. So this little booklet traveled all the way to Egypt from Texas (don't mess with Texas!) just so it could get put BACK into the mail and get sent to me in the states.

PS I don't know what to do with this stuff as throwing it away would probably just be wrong of me (I always feel guilty throwing religious stuff away, even when it has been handed to me by the most raving of zealous lunitics on the street). So - any takers??!?!?

UPDATE: as of today, 10/30/08, four other people in my office have received the same thing. AND I am also now suddenly subscribed to VOGUE and it is arriving at my office. No, I don't read VOGUE. No, I don't like fashion magazines. And NO I didn't pay for it. I work at a university. Sure - I get free subscriptions to fundraising magazines - but VOGUE? Really? Evidently somebody somewhere is telling me I need to convert and learn to dress better. Obviously the answer to all my problems ... :)

UPDATE #2 (12/19/08): Thank you to all the people who have commented here/emailed me. Turns out people literally around the country - mostly at Universities - are receiving these things. Random! Anybody else?!? Let me know! AND - if anybody comes up how/why these are coming to us - let me know!! :) Happy Holidays!!!

UPDATE #3 (3/11/09): So interestingly enough I found some more answers this week. When I originally got the packet, months ago, I got curious and visited their website (the one listed on the mailing materials), and then sent an email to the listed contact email address on the site. Months and months later and finally - I received a response! The body of the email that was sent to me is copy and pasted below:

Assalaamualaykum wa Rahmatullah wa Barakaatuhu,

First of all we are very sorry for taking this time for reply but a technical problem happened in our email database which make some emails fall from the data and your email was one from them , we are very sorry again

We know that you may surprise in who you get these books , we have a project called ( know Islam ) its just a peace project which we want by it to let the people know the true meaning of Islam as we try to

We are an Islamic society that are tired of the one-sided information about Islam in the media and the ignorance in most societies about Islam. We would like everybody, man and woman, young and old, to take a look themselves and read a book about Islam. We are not out to convert anybody to Islam, we only want people to read for themselves what Islam is about, to clear away all the misunderstanding and misconception there is among so many people about Islam.

You may live in a Christian part of the world, where most people call themselves Christians. But most Christians do not really know their own religion, and wrongly think Islam or Judaism is a very different religion than their own. Not so. We invite you to our books. This will lead you to the true concept of Islam and Muslims, and not least help bridge the gap between those major religions.

We have so many free books for you to read on many subjects. We are sure these books will lead you to greater understanding of Islam and what it means to be a Muslim. Only God can lead a person to faith, we just want to make books available and to reduce the tension and misconceptions about these subjects among non-Muslims.

So make contact or go to our web place to download our books in PDF format, or ask that we send you some books by mail. Please tell us what your primary interest is.

Best Regards
Conveying Islamic Message Society
http://www.islamic-message.net/

A Flailing Monkey Defying Gravity

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Also, to the guys who tried to steal my pink bike.

Nikon Small World Contest

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Terribly Confused

Steep and Cheap!!