Here it goes:

Dear Mrs. Hend,

I am wondering why someone who mentions Islam in her Artist Statement, as if it is something she actually embraces, has to produce some really disturbing, clearly un -Islamic art and publish it? I find your screen prints particularly appalling. If something like ‘ Dark Lovers’, which is just unnecessarily graphic and morally completely unacceptable (again, from an Islamic perspective) represents you -and presumably, your art does- then why even mention the religion the Holy Prophet Muhammad sws. has brought us? Why not just distance yourself, become ‘modern’ altogether and produce the most repulsive art your escaping mind can envision, which will surely be referred to as ‘ provocative’ and ‘pushing the boundaries’ by atheist critics and journalists, and gain popularity that way? Artists, like all other human beings, need to make a choice -every single day of their lives. Every single second they draw air into their lungs, they must decide who they belong to. If their decision is ‘nobody’, then they may act as they please, produce, promote and proclaim as they like. Believing everything will end when the drawing of the breath comes to an end. If, however, they decide they belong to the One who created their soul, created their body, gave them life, promised them sustenance and will order their return one day – then one must at least accept His Word, His Rules, His Guidance through the Holy Quran as well as the message of His Prophet, in all its reality. Then one must, even among all the flaws and weaknesses that we as human beings possess, at the very least try and follow the Righteous Path as transmitted to us in the most secure way. Whatever that may mean for the individual. But spreading pornography and images of homosexuality are clearly, undoubtedly not among the deeds of one who even mentions the word ‘Islam’ in its personal statement. No one will reproach you for not believing -at least not where you live now. But some may be deeply confused and disturbed by your blatant hypocrisy. I followed the link to the other website, finding the artwork deep and moving, before discovering in your biography that this art was something you produced before emigrating. It is a shame. It doesn’t have to be like this. Freedom of expression does not necessitate sanctimony, nor does it have to lead to falling out of the clouds completely.

Within this body and soutl

This time and place

Is what exists

Nothing beyond that, is there.

Shehrayar (controlling his anger): Shehrazade, why do you draw nude women? This is blasphemy.

 Shehrazade (carelessly): Why? What’s wrong with women’s bodies?

Shehrayar (dumbfounded) : Nude women?!  Everything is wrong with that.

Shehrazade (looking him in the eye): They are not real women. They are art. They are ideas.

Shehrayar : They evoke desire. 

Shehrazade (with a sarcastic smile): Desire is born to be evoked. How else human kind continues?! What  good desire is if you want to kill it? 

Shehrayar: Not kill it,but suppress it and control it.

Shehrazade: THAT will evoke it like nothing else. You know better, Shehrayar. 

Shehrayar: Shut up!. Nudity encourages sin.

Shehrazade: Nudity in art means more than encouraging “sin”. What you call sin is a minor side effect. 

Shehrayar (with wide open eyes): Minor?!!

Shehrazade: Shehrayar, eroticism results from variety of things. You can not ban everything erotic. 

Shehrayar: You want to destroy the fabric of society. You want God’s wrath to devastate my kingdom

Shehrazade: Society needs to breath. Your kingdom needs fresh air and sunshine to keep its fabric from rotting.

Shehrayar (furious): Shehrazade, you are playing with fire. You know exactly what I can do to you.

Shehrazade (with the same sarcastic smile): And I know exactly what you can not do to me.

Shehrayar: Shut up woman!

Shehrazade (lovingly): I want to help you Shehrayar. Please accept what you are.

Shehrayar: Shut up! Shut up!

Shehrazade: Accept your human desire. It is not sin. Accept your…

Shehrayar: Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

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Shehrayar rushes out of the room. Shehrazade goes back to her pigment bowl.

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I say that she cheated because he was not interested in her. In fact her vibrant sexuality drove him away. He went so often on hunting trips.

Although Shehrayar was the king he could not legalize gay marriage.

Instead, he killed his wife!!

What kind of twisted thinking was that?

He then went on marrying women and killing them in a rage cycle not because of his unfaithful wife but with his frustrated homosexuality. 

Women in Shehrayar’s kingdom were abused not only by straight men but by gay men as well. 

Gay men suffered too.

Who’s fault was that?

—————————————————————————————————-

He is gay. But pretends he is not. 

So, he married her. What a mess!

Can’t wait to see what happens next.

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Hawwa and Adam: How can we be? 

Can’t you see, we are woman and woman… er.. womanman and woman???

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Don’t try to take it from me

Because you can’t

It had already traveled miles away

If you chase after it

You will be divided into one thousand and one directions

And

At the end

You will surrender

Happily

Exactly like Shehrayar

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