Transcript of Tambisha's Everyday Beauty YouTube channel, Zanzibar, Tanzania
Episode #735, 'Three Pearls Facial Beauty tips' August 12, 2022
Tambisha:
Karibu sana, alekum salamu.1
Today I will share 3 simple beauty tricks that will make you feel like a real queen, known as the Three Pearls method. And as I always say, remember to find a little bit of your inner diva each and every day, Inshallah. But first, a message from my sponsor, Ambergris Industries:
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Bismillah. So, what you're going to do is you're doing to take this brow brush (I like to use a soft #7 natural hair brush), and you're going to start by slowly massaging the skin on both cheeks, moving in gentle circles first one way, and then the other way, and then what you're going to do is pick up your phone and type into Google: LGBT Voice Tanzania, and you're gonna learn how the authorities are killing and torturing our people for being as Allah made them, simply because of who they love.
So then you're going to take this makeup sponge with a little bit of clean water, and lightly massage your eyelids like… this… and then you're going to open your eyes to the true meaning of what the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) gave us in the Holy Quran, because for centuries we have been told lies by oppressors and colonizers who always want to keep us subservient to their idols, instead of to Allah the Most Merciful. You will then Google Mushin Hendricks 'Islamic Texts: A source for Acceptance of Queer Individuals into Mainstream Muslim Society,' for as the holy scripture says, in 9 Quran 17:81,"Truth has now arrived, and falsehood perished, for falsehood by its nature is bound to perish."
I like to finish with a moisturizing mist. So you take a deep breath in through the nose, mhhhhh. And spray just a small amount starting on your chin, along the jawline like so, and then once again on the forehead. Then release that deep breath, out through the mouth: ahhhhhh. As the holy words say, when Lot was preaching to the wicked men of Sodom in 9 Quran 7:82, "Indeed, in your greed for power you listen only to abusive men, instead of listening to the women. Certainly you are traitors to your people." Some say the gates of Ijtihad2 are closed forever, and those people tell you that Taqleed3 is better, to stop asking questions or use the blessings of your own reason. But to this you may ask: who should you imitate except the will of Allah?
One last thing: let me show this beautiful emerald green silk hijab! I just love it, isn't it spectacular? Listen, to all the queer Muslims out there, I want you to know that Allah has made you for a reason. You are beautiful, and you are not sinners for your love. There is nothing in the Holy Quran that forbids what is natural, and there is nothing unnatural about who you are. Many people in our community fear the judgement of our parents and conservative Imams, but you should fear only Allah in His infinite wisdom. Others say that this is something that comes from the West, forgetting that it was the colonizers who brought these oppressive laws, which disrupted many of our established traditions. Maybe things are bad now, but one day they will be better if you do not lose faith and remember your history. There is a place for you in this world, despite what the colonizers and oppressors will try to make you believe.
Asanteni sana wapenzi wangu, mashaallah!4 See you next time!
Somewhere in the Southern Ocean, the shadowy bulk of a humpback whale rises slowly to the surface.
It is night; a thousand glittering stars point the direction to colder waters, where great blooms of benthic organisms swarm below the ice floes. The ancient creature breaks the surface and breathes a cloud of spray high into the air, suffusing the atmosphere with a delicate fragrance. As the tiny droplets coalesce onto the whale's back, they form lines of human writing, each one reflecting its own miniature night sky as they merge, divide and dissipate again in liquid steganography.
Nobody is here to witness this but the clear night sky, and the biting wind driving from the South. After a few moments, the whale lifts its fluke and begins to submerge, flooding the ephemeral script beneath sudden valleys of deep green.
But if the night had eyes to see with, and the wind had a voice to read aloud, they would murmur snatches of story from a time long ago.
And if you asked nicely, and promised to listen patiently, they might tell it to you.
5
Mariah Releases the Serpent from the Pillar of Amber, Whereof Great Destruction is Descended Upon the Land
Full-sore the forebears of Adam wept in their misery at the hands of cruel Aeshu, and they were led by bronze chains into a dark forest, where all that were sound of body were forced to labour in the captor’s mines.
For the Aeshurians prized above all things jewels of precious amber that could be found in the darkest caverns there, and so were eager to set these new captives to its toilsome procurement. Some more favoured for their comeliness were made handmaids and footmen for the kings at the high houses of Aeshu, wherein dwelt the nobles of their kind in indolent disport.
Yet among those so relegated to the mines was the widow Mariah, mother to the late boar-champion. Her suffering was threefold: of the first, since like her people she was now made a slave; second that her only son had been slain in callous disregard; and third, that her captors had strung his white bones upon a standard at the entrance to the caverns, so that fresh torment greeted her each day with the sight of his body denied its proper burial. Moreover this grotesque idol did serve to remind the captives of Saul how the Aeshurians would reward disobedience.
So passing by the standard one day, Mariah spied two crows plucking at the bones thereon and making harsh cries, whenas she fell to her knees crying, “Oh Eve, what have I done to deserve this fate? The promise of our journey was to bring aid to a suffering people, and yet we have been cast down like law-breakers by this cruel society of treasure-seekers, with no appeal to justice.”
But Eve could not return in answer, since her beauty had so impressed the Aeshurians that they had made of her a concubine to a child prince of theirs, and while he was yet too young to marry, in a great ball of amber glass he kept her as a play-thing the while they planned to wait.
Still Mariah cried out in vain, so that a guard nearby did bear down across her back his whip, and drove her thus again into the deep mine. Bent low among her people, still she worked beside them and clawed her bare hands into the earth for amber, yet finding only old tree-roots and sharp stones that cut and bruised her further. So it was that a whole day passed while still she found no quarry, and was left by the others as a ringing from a bronze cymbal that called them to their cells.
So lit by one last brand, Mariah plied the ceaseless earth to the last of her strength, whereupon she struck it with her fist, and by this feat split the seam from post to post. Then the cavern filled with a bright light as from a signal fire, and where the stone had cracked there now stood a pillar of yellow amber, and like a hatchling in its egg there coiled a sleeping serpent that shone with many colours.
In her fear Mariah fled out the cave, telling the people in hushed and hurried tones of what she had seen there. The other slaves thought her mad with fatigue, and that the serpent in the pillar of amber was but a false vision brought on by delirious hunger. Many like visions besides had they themselves been made witness: one man complained that he heard children laughing at the borders of his sleep and so could never enjoy rest; while another saw pleasant food and drink set before him, yet all would vanish whensoever he tried to touch them.
But all were moved to silent awe whereon they returned to the cave on the second day, and saw with their own eyes the coloured serpent in its egg of amber, and they knew not what to do, nor what to say. Then Mariah spoke to them, saying, “While you were troubled by night visions, I set my mind to this end: that by reciting the songs of our ancient home I might chance upon a useful course.
"So it was that I came unto the lay of a certain serpent who made the rivers and mountains, and I found therein nine verses that tell of his resting place within a bed of amber, and that by singing another lay and striking his egg with the bones of my son, that he might be released from his bondage to deliver us and bring vengeance to the upper world of Aeshu.”
Lo, as evening arrived to hide their movements, Mariah took down the bones of her son from the gruesome standard, and with them began to strike a rhythm on the serpent’s egg. While she thus led the men who joined her in their meter, the voices of the women she lifted in song to the heavens above the Aeshurian land. Their singing grew ever louder, and their drumming of the bones rang out as like to hammers on crystal bells, and the scent of sacred perfume surrounded them, until of a sudden the serpent broke his bonds in a column of white fire that rose up from the abyss.
The serpent grew stronger and more terrible in size, until he rent the walls of the cave and flew up into the sky, where a great maelstrom followed him with earthquakes and flooding rains wheresoever he went. The Aeshurian warriors threw down their spears to flee at his approach, and loud thunder shook the walls of their garrisons, and flashes of lightning smote their high towers and fine mansions, until they came crashing down to dust.
All the treasures of gold and silver and all the shining jewels of amber were swept away by floodwaters, as the justice of heaven that Mariah called had found purchase. Then heaven’s covenant was like a wild fire that burned without discretion, so that many of Saul and of Aeshu alike were drowned in the turmoil, and of man and woman alike, and of young and old alike moreover.
For forty days and forty nights thus the serpent caused storms to rain down and strike the land of Aeshu with great tumult, until its valleys and plains were become like unto a fathomless deep, and even the peaks of the highest hills were covered with water. All manner of bird, beast and man were thrown adrift upon the arms of trees uprooted from the forest of Aeshu.
First among them was Eve, as still within the ball of glass made to keep her by the cruel prince, yet now it bore her aloft upon the flood as a coracle bears the fisherman. Seeing her then, the people of Saul felt new hope light as tapers in their hearts, and though they suffered to keep hold of their tree-branches and avoid death, each man and woman of Saul and Aeshu alike did then release their enmity of one another.
Then the people called out to their familiars the sea beasts, and with their help wove a circlet of branches about the glass ball of Eve, so that as a pearl of great price within a crown of green they set her, and from this raft they gained their own salvation. Next they struck the clasp of bronze that fastened the glass ball, and it fell in twain, whereupon Eve leapt free to embrace them through true tears of joy.
When all had found footing on the woven raft, the people looked to the sky where they saw the mighty serpent leap between the stormclouds, and the scales on its body gleamed with many colours, and the rain and thunder ceased, and calm returned to the waves upon the sea.
So with gratitude that their torment was now at an end, the people sang songs of thanks unto the high and low kingdoms, and afterward Eve bade them rest among the greenery of the raft, where birds and beasts of diverse kind were their bedfellows.
Then the serpent went down once more into the sea-foam, wherein a whirling spout of water did follow the beast down, and in time the sea drained into an abyss wherein the serpent fled beneath the earth, until the green hilltops appeared once more to the light of the day. Thereafter did the raft make rest upon the shore of a goodly island, that lately was a high mountain above the plains of Aeshu, and so they found refuge at long last.
More wonders still they beheld: as from the pit where the many-coloured serpent had first arisen, there now grew a tall tree bearing on its boughs the silver apples of the moon, for it was the tree of life, and likewise from the place where the serpent had returned into the earth, there now grew a mighty tree bearing the golden apples of the sun, for it was the tree of knowledge. And between these two trees the land about was made unto a garden of earthly delight, while upon the high hill above their paradise the people built a temple to honour the memory of their dead.
Upon the foundation stone of the temple did Eve consecrate her duty, and called the place Eden, for it was a delight to all who dwelt there. Thrice three stone pillars they raised to support a wide roof of cedar, and by wise craft they built spaces therein to watch the stars and follow the seasons, and they also made bright images of the champions upon its walls, they being the lioness, the bull-auroch, the buzzard, the stork, the crocodile, the scorpion, and the boar, and many other laws and songs of their people.