Welcome to muslim tea room 2.

[defuse]

Peace to you all

Ok, well here it is again...we have moved to room 2 now

Discuss whatever aspect of islam you like my lovely sisters - this is a place for muslims and non-muslims too, to share experiences, raising kids or just having your say!

The kettle is on.... We have loads of herbal teas, coffee and guava juice .... I like guava juice so welcome!

[defuse]

Just too the liberty to copy and paste a message by worldcitizen from previous thread in case anyone can help:

Hello everyone, I am seeing some names which are so familiar to me and I didn't know where else to post, so hope you all could help me ut or lead me into the right direction, hopefully

I have 2 questions:

A long while ago, there was a thread about relationships, domestic violence or conflict in a marriage or something along those lines and someone posted a link (not so sure anymore) where it specified de-eskalation, mediation etc "the Muslim way" it looked like great advice. It seemed to be very professional (SW or counselling) and evidence-based. I hope I am able to explain well what I mean?

Does someone here know what I mean and could help me to find that again. I tried google, but wasn't successful.

And the second questions is a little bit more complicated...please bear with me

I am looking for help in regards to some contacts with social work/counselling/police units (specifically dealing with hate crimes (against Muslims), domestic violence in Muslim families, interreligious community groups etc., in London, where we ( a group of 3-4 people) could meet in April for a few hours.
We are in London (Hendon) at that time and we would be looking to meet for a professional exchange.

I wold like to elaborate more, but am not sure, if this would be the right place, so better keep it to a minimum as of now...

I am saying thank you in advance for your help and guidance.

[defuse]

took the liberty!! Not too!

[fuzzywuzzy]

Yeay I was just checking to see if a new thread had been started up.

I've never had guava juice!

[defuse]

www.waitrose.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductView-10317-10001-21134-Rubicon+Exotic+guava+juice+drink+(1litre).html?storeId=10317#.UsH95H8gGSM

This one's not 'proper' guava juice, but its still yummy.

[worldcitizen]

Hello everyone,

thanks so much for the very informative response I have received from peacefuloptimist

And thank you defuse for reposting my question/call for help.

Really really appreciate it

[craftysewer]

I just wanted to pop in and say "Hi" as I am away visiting friends over New Year and may not get much chance to stay in touch for the next few days. I've never tried Baclava, but next time I visit my oldest daughter in Edinburgh I will make sure we go back to the Turkish cafe near her and try some.

[ButterflySandwich]

Guava juice and baklava... diabetics will need a spoonful of insulin to help all that sugar go down

[LostAtTheEndOfTheRainbow]

Salaam

Thank you for the new thread defuse.

Crafty your post on the last thread was lovely, thank you. I hope you stay with us throughout this thread, I look forward to hearing your input .

I will post more on this thread inshAllah, but for now I'll have a plain old English tea. Never tried baclava either, sounds a bit adventurous for me!

May Allah (swt) grant our families with good health, peace and unity for the new year ahead.

Ameen

[UmmSHI]

Salam everyone, really happy to see this thread here today. Will pop back soon inshaallah with more to say once the thread gets going.

Mine's a peppermint tea.

[worldcitizen]

Hello crescent!!!!! So glad to "meet" again

It's true, I haven't been on here for such long while. I was too busy with lots of life-changing career decisions and simply no time to be on MN.

I was thinking, I might have to introduce myself and my cultural/religious background and also with which intention I have posted my questions and what the backstory is.

I will later this evening. Thought I will read through both threads linked above, so I know better what's appropriate here and what not. At least, I hope I will

[fuzzywuzzy]

Subhanallah I start re evening when my girls are in bed with a cup of spiced chai, I'm going to start buying evaporated milk and use that in my chai too make it really special lol.

There's nothing like the first cup of chai of the evening and the start of 'me' time.
Over the years I've come to really enjoy the evening solitude. During the day I sometimes feel pulled in so many directions.

What does everyone else do to unwind?

[worldcitizen]

Hello everyone, and thanks crescent for encouraging me to join without having read throught he other threads first. Thanks a lot.

I remember soem names here mostly due to some 'obnoxious threads' on here, which were ignorant and bigoted, and i was so impressed with the way posters here are able to repsond and still hold their head up gracefully. very impressed.

Also impressed by the strength and poise and peacefulness. I've said it before and someone has said it in the last tearoom thread.
It's very strange, but reading the ones where the Muslim family and marriage experience is being shared, one feels miraculously at peace. Really strange emotional experience.

as some of you might already know, I am German of Tunisian Muslim descent who has married a half Catholic/half Southern Baptist White-Latino U.S. American.
I myself have attended Protestant childcare, after-school care and promary school. With involvement in the church community after-school events until we were all 16.
Grew up with 'Native Germans and kids of all kinds of mediterranean descent and Scandinavians, as I grew up in the street where all 4 Scandinavian main churches and community/family centers are.
Also up the street was the English Anglican church and the Catlic one, surrounded be the 5 other main protestant-lutheran churches...scattered around also all kinds of mosques from all kinds of Muslim immigrant communities.

All this mostly not identifiable to visitors from the rest of Germany or other tourists. Looks all very unassuming and generic german.

I speak German, Arabic, English and French...

I have one child, a daughter, who lives with my ex-husband, her grand-parents, stepmother and various half-and stepsiblings.

I have been very much touched by the latest global developments (past 10 years or so) and have been way to quiet/silent, but I believe it has reached a point with me, where I cannot not be involved in peace work and interreligious dialogue anymore.

I am hoping to learn from the UK experience, as you are ahead of us in those terms.

Well, what i else can I share...?

My background is in social work (medical and clinical) and police/border control, and refugee/asylum seeking field.
I have worked and still do on state/government level and NGO's and organisations with religious affiliations.
Whcih I am doing now as well. I do work for the state government, the city of Hamburg, at the official Centre for new coming unaccompanied refugee/asylum seeking minors) AND work at the mergency homeless shelter which is entirely Christian (Protestant) with funding from city government and donations.
At the same time I have returned to uni working on my 2nd/3rd Masters. One in International Criminology and the other one in Peace and Conflict studies.
Of course, my regional focus is going to be mostly the Maghreb and further the entire Mediterranean region focusing on EU borders and the western sub-saharan area (former French and British colonies).

I am also a participant (as a private individual) in interreligious events. Also, starting to have more and more contact with the jewish community who have loads of cultural offers.

I am now 40 years old...and well, I guess I actaully should share whatwe are planning to do in Londo. And who we are .

But first, I'll take a little break and something little to eat and make a tea and then I'll be back.

[worldcitizen]

Hello fuzzy remember you too

[worldcitizen]

...so my personal story to be continued ( i am currently also over there on the Northern ireland and HQ not reacting issue)...

So in the second week of April, we will be a group of 20 or so people in London and I took it upon me to organise for 4-5 people, myself included two to four professional exchange visits.

Background is female detective superintendent having lots of DV cases, and other sorts of human conflict related things...
Not because it is more prevalent in the Muslim community, no, more due to the neighbourhoods she is serving where there is higher Muslim population present.

Also, there has been a huge conflict between parent group of Turkish Muslim male youth being (maybe?) targeted more often by police...
Conflict escalated that much that it even made national news.

She wants to meet with community organisers and police, where within the police there is some best practice standards or something similar how to work together towards social peace in the community and how police should self-reflect???

Do they have such thing in the UK? maybe Leeds, London, Birmingham?

We believe that our neighbourhood situation could be compared to 3rd generation pakistani youth, maybe?!

Then the other 2 are prosecutor (male) and psychotherapist (female) both also Muslim and of Afghan descent.
Strong interest in forced marriage and DV and social work/shelter support net.
We in germany are still little bit in infancy regarding the application of support system and yet being culturally and religious sensitive and respectful, IYSWIM.

I am of course very interested in these topics, mentioned above, and am also looking into Islamophobia, hate crimes and other hateful nasty reactions.
We jsut had a few days ago, in another german city though, several pigs heads around the mosque and at the entrance.

Also, there is currently a former church being transformed into a mosque in a very multi-cultural working class neighbourhood. And they have negotiated this within the community with all kinds of members and the deal was made and all are happy, but now all kinds of people from other areas of the city and other parts of germany are commenting as this is not the proof that Germany is being "islamisized" and next will be the Sharia law etc.

So, we are hoping to get some contacts and learn some thing or two and have more or less of an informal meet and greet.....

You think, this is just a stupid of mine or do you think it sounds realistic?

[fuzzywuzzy]

I don't think it's stupid at all.

I think domestic issues need to be discussed openly and clamly within the Muslim comunity begining with the 'leaders' the imams and the scholars need to work with the police and come up with a strategy that will make the issues more open and the environment safer for people wanting to leave violent situations or have the right to refuse to marry based on their parents cultural expectations.

You could speak with East London and Central London Mosques they both have imams and I know East london mosque also has a counselling service (or did) who openly condemn and speak of DV issues and forced marriages etc.

There is a whole list of Muslim groups geared to helping women in vilent situations, but these are still in their infancy.

But it's a step in the right direction.

[worldcitizen]

Thanks fuzzy

See, we certainly believe that there is a terrible dveloment of sensational media coverage of Isla and Muslims.
the strange thing is, this has not been the issue before, but in the past 6-8 years possibly it has started to become unbearable.

So, many female Muslims are starting to wear headscarfs and we even have the develoment of women wearing hijabs and once in a while also the face veil. All of this being stated as being the counter-reaction of a hostile environment.

I just had to cry reading what has been stated at the N.I. racist MNHQ not reacting thread.

People now being late thirties describing how they were treated 20 years ago like terrorists and being strip-searched and people on the tube moving away thinking they're having explosives...how sad

Am I too dramatic in feeling that there is a massive increase of islamophobiain Europe?

[peacefuloptimist]

Yippee. A new thread. I have been watching with interest all day but finally got a chance to post now. Thanks defuse for getting us started. Hello everyone glad to see all the familiar faces and some new ones too.

Worldcitizen it definitely sounds doable. I mean you have a good couple of months to arrange it so I dont see why not. Now that you have given a bit more info there are some other organisations I can point you towards.

Association of Muslim Police

West Midlands Association of Muslim Police

I would search out more official governmental organisation if I were you just because they probably have Standards of Practice and Procedures that would be useful to you. The West Midlands Association of Muslim Police probably deal with the sort of demographic you describe.

Of the ones I mentioned before TellMama and IHRC are probably the best to contact about Islamophobia and Nour is a good one to speak to about domestic violence. There is another charity which may be of use to you.

www.an-nisa.org/

Just found this on their website:

'An-Nisa works in three main areas:

• Developing and promoting good practice models of faith appropriate services to Muslim families
  
  
• Supporting other Muslim groups in the UK and beyond
  
  
• Raising awareness about Islam, the Muslim community and influencing policy development'
  
  So it seems like they deal with some of the issues you mentioned. I hope this helps and sorry to bombard you with lots of information.

[worldcitizen]

Hey crescent thanks a lot. Looked through it. Not wasn't there.

I am so angry about myself that I cannot find it anymore. Even tried google didn't help

It was something like recommended counselling practice whe working with Muslim couples/families.

It debunked separation and divorce ways and gave recommendation of how to approach the family, the community and which responsibilities the husband actually has and how and which family members are being activated and offering shelter to the woman.

How the man needs to "change" and reflect etc....

And which steps finally could lead to divorce for example.

It sort of explained how the rules of how to treat and care for wife and kids are actually very women-friendly and how men who are let's say simply losers, just use their religion as an open backdoor to act nasty like a dictator, but how wrong it actually is cause that's not what the religion is about.

And actually we have this development here, mostly in our german case being third generation Turkish-german young adults.
Am wondering if this could be compared to 3rd generation Pakistani-British young adults marrying one another and other influences could be reason for disturbed young marriages, but they claim themselves it's their religion...but it's not.

I hope I make sense. And I promise, I won't drag this out too long here on this thread as it is otherwise a very lovely calm and peaceful support thread.

[worldcitizen]

Wow thanks sooooooo soooooooo much. No, I appreciate all this. exactly what I was hoping for.
I myself feel like I am the one bombarding here

This all has simply reached a point where I am not willing to stand back and continue to be polite, so seeing how often and tiredlessly many of you have constantly explained on various threads is a wonderful inspiration and I am not even in the UK.

Thanks so much. One of resolutions for 2014 is to get this done and bring this from the UK back to our community cause you are ahead of us!!!!

[peacefuloptimist]

It is very depressing to hear your accounts about the spread of Islamophobia in Europe. There has been a significant increase in these sorts of scaremongering articles about Muslims. The recent thread on mumsnet about Marks and Spencers policies towards its muslim staff is a good example. I couldnt even be bothered to post on it. I thought if people are so pathetic that they can get hysterical about such a non issue I really dont have anything to say to them. I mean really only 5-6% of the Uk population is made up of muslims. How many of them work in Marks and Sparks and how many of them care enough to actually act on that policy (assuming that its true and not just made up)? There was an interesting article a few years ago where a journalist resigned from a British tabloid newspaper because he said they were pressuring him to write stories to stir up hatred against muslims and even going to the lengths of publishing fictional stories.

www.theguardian.com/media/2011/mar/04/daily-star-reporter-quits-protest

I always suspect all the so called news stories to do with muslims these days. I remember once reading the Metro on the way to university a few years ago and I was baffled after reading a few scaremongering articles like that and just wondered why is this news? It is a growing concern for me especially now that I have a child. I dont want him to grow up being hated. Now Im the dramatic one.

Woah not even finished page 1 and we have already got on to some heavy topics. Shall I lighten the mood.

I went to the hairdressers today to get the Brazillian blow dry but she told me you cant get it done if your breastfeeding. When I told her that Im still breastfeeding my 16 month old son she looked at me in horror and said "But he's a man. What are you still breast feeding him for?" Made me chuckle the whole day. Im really on my last legs now with this breastfeeding gig. Im sick and tired of it but Im too scared of my son to stop. I was hoping he would get bored of it by himself but over the holidays he has become even more addicted to it. Im giving him another two months I think then Im going to stop. My DM and DH keep telling me though that if I have got this far I might as well complete the two years. Has anyone managed to breastfeed any of their children for two years by the way? After speaking to a few friends who all stopped before their child was one years old Im starting to think its a myth or at least doesnt happen as commonly as we are led to believe.

[worldcitizen]

I breastfed my child until she was 19 months. Starting from about 13 months to give one less daily feeding every month until it was only once a day in the end and I hoped she would forget to ask for the breast, which she did for two days then she tried again but without demanding it and I got her distracted and then that was it.

Breastfeeding was history

[peacefuloptimist]

I hope it will be as easy as that for me worldcitizen!

By the way anyone doing anything interesting for New Years Eve. I have been keeping watching of the Google homepage doodle to see what its going to do when the clock strikes 12. I know what an exciting life I lead.

My evening routine is to settle down with a cup of hot chocolate and my lap top and watch bbc iplayer. I used to spend time with my DH in the evenings but now I just want to totally unwind on my OWN. If he comes in to the same room whilst I am having my evening me time I just give him my death stare till he leaves. He sits in the kitchen whilst I have the big sofa all to myself.

[EmbroideredCloths]

I breastfed my ds until he was 2.5 yrs. like you, peaceful, I was ready to stop at about 18 months but he wasn't having it. There were a handful of abortive attempts to make him stop, they were traumatic and extremely stressful. They also didn't work. From 18m onwards it was only at night time but I was aware that others thought he was too old for it and felt the subconscious pressure. In the end though I gave up and gave in. Just didn't tell people he was still breast feeding.

At 2.5, one day, he just didn't want it anymore. No tears, no tantrums, unbelievably easy. Made me realise that if you work to your child's timetable instead of artificial external ones, life is just easier all round for everyone.