It’s Iimi! Bus-Stop Battle

Iimi meets Najiyah Ayad, Kismetta’s friend from her Mosque, for the first time. Unfortunately, the encounter is very much like her encounters with Saul and Daryl, who assume the worst of anything outside of their beliefs. 

 

Kismetta is stuck between one friend who she is sure is speaking justly and another who is not. How will this impact her search for the truth?

Preliminary Note: The character of Najiyah Ayad is not intended to be a stereotypical representation of Muslims in general. She is simply an intolerant person who happens to be a Muslim. Much like Saul (Fundamentalist Christian) and Daryl (Radical Traditionalist Catholic), Najiyah doesn’t question what she assumes to be true. Please keep that in mind before thinking (or accusing me of thinking) that Najiyah is some kind of Muslim “everyman.”

Post Comic Notes: The original title was going to be “Bus-Stop Making Sense,” but that references a movie from over twenty years before Iimi was even born, and I wasn’t sure if any of the readers would get the reference. There’s being punny and there’s being “downright obscure.”

It’s Iimi! Knee-Jerk

Society has grown so fractured that it is impossible to have a civil discussion on anything. The assumption is that anyone who disagrees must be supporting evil. No attempt is made to understand the other side. This does not mean that we let evil have its way. But it does mean that we have an obligation to ask whether our assumptions are true before accusing the other of bad will.

 

Iimi’s older sister gets dragged into a debate on the recent Maüs controversy. But the position she stakes out is, if we don’t try to understand, our reactions are merely Knee Jerk

It’s Iimi! An Iota Worth of Difference

When it was announced that a priest had been invalidly baptizing people for twenty years, the news feeds and social media exploded in outrage. After all, he only changed one word, right? Why would the Church “revoke” the validity of that? But that one change totally altered the meaning.

 

We need to be aware that there can be a huge shift of meaning in something as small as An Iota Worth of Difference…

It’s Iimi! Honor Your Father and Mother

When Paula’s mother disappoints her once again, Iimi and her friends have to work with her through the disappointment and the struggle to honor her mother when she is hurt and angry. Kismetta watches and wonders why she has never experienced something similar with her own parents. But when she discovers things she would have thought impossible, she, too, must struggle with her own obligation to Honor her Father and Mother.

 

Post Comic Notes: Islam is not a monolith and does not have a hierarchy like Catholicism does. So, different Muslims can interpret how to live in different manners. Also, like it is among Christians, you can have Muslims be lax, moderate, or stringent in behavior and observance. Kismetta’s family, having a European/American background, will have a different outlook than those from a Middle Eastern background. 

 

I’ve researched Muslim views on the topics discussed and have tried to represent them fairly. (The prayer Kismetta uses twice in this comic came from an article explaining how Muslims make petitionary prayer. She’s being rather formal about it because of how seriously she takes it. 

 

I don’t doubt that Muslim readers of this comic will disagree with Kismetta’s increasingly non-orthodox views. However, any mistaken representations of orthodox Muslim understandings in this comic are due to my misunderstanding of the material and not out of any intended malice or ridicule.

It’s Iimi! Blessed are the Peacemakers

Resenting her mother’s perceived arbitrariness already, things reach a breaking point when Krysta makes a chance discovery about a secret from the past. When it results in a mutual misunderstanding about the other’s motives, can Iimi and Thea help them let go of the anger and mistrust and start to talk about it instead?