To think latent Islamaphobia is as prevalent as ever

[Lesschubtolove]

This is based from several posts I’ve now seen in MN, about burquinis, wearing the hijab, in fact anything vaguely Muslim related on MN and in print media as well as the real world.

Most comments from posters on MN are fairly neutral but there are a fair number that then state some pretty (pulls yikes face) comments, especially about women’s clothing or integration. There also seem to be a lot of misconceptions about what Muslims actually believe.

It seems to me as though yes most people won’t come out and say that they dislike Muslims or think they are stupid, backwards, oppressed (insert adjective here) but the disdain comes out in more subtle ways.

im genuinely quite surprised at the misconceptions I read on MN, but I guess they must apply to real life too, but just that people don’t wish to voice them.

ps I am a Muslim myself. I did an ama a while back

I don't know why people are so bothered about modesty or hijabs. Orthodox Jewish women dress modestly and wear headscarves or wigs. Christian women certainly used to dress modestly and cover their heads in church. It's not particular to Islam. My main experience of Islam is a tradition of hospitality where, as a guest, you will be treated with utmost welcome. If you are lost people go miles out of their way to help you. That's my abiding impression of Islamic culture. I don't suppose many people are familiar with it though.

In an earlier post I asked about modern thinking. Your reply was that it was not required. Implying that everything was right first time.
You dodge several points by saying "Ah but that is not the true Islam"
One improvement that Christians have made to their teaching is to translate The Bible to everyday language. In order that ordinary people can understand it.
Your Islam maintains that you must learn the Arabic of the middle ages first.
Tyndale's bible was a new translation from original Greek sources. Scholarship now identities that some errors occurred, usually of emphasis I believe.
These translations and interpretations are all aimed at getting to the original meaning for the benefit of us all.

@Lesschubtolove How many are there answering these questions? I think there is more than you at work here.

@8state

I think by adopting a modest dress there is the implicit thought that it is up to a woman to protect themselves from men's gaze i.e. any harassment of a woman is due to their immodesty not a man's uncontrolled desire. I think this is why women in the UK historically have ditched the concept of the need to always where modest clothing along with gaining more rights in society in general in society. The imposition of modest dress is in my opinion a retrograde step.

If a woman where's modest clothing out of free will then all well and good but if the dress is worn out cultural expectation isn't the woman complicit in a code of misogny? I note Muslim med do not wear modest clothing to the same extent.

Hospitality is great though.

Sorry about the typos

It’s interesting that in the discussions around modest dress the OP hasn’t mentioned the niqab or the burka. Is this because there’s no equivalent in Christianity for you to point at? Or because they are rarely worn in the west (compared to the hijab) and you don’t want to talk about other countries?

I don’t think this has been a pile on at all I think you’ve made a lot of sweeping statements about Islam which you aren’t able to back up when you are pressed on them.

Oh, for heaven's sake. That's not racism. You don't put on a hijab and change race.

And, yes, it is minor.

This is a post of someone looking to be offended and found it.

quranically it’s to draw a distinction between believing and non believing women.

That's very offensive. Many believing Muslim women don't wear the scarf, in fact probably a majority of Muslim women don't. They didn't pre fundamentalist takeover in Afghanistan. They dressed like normal women. I think it's the fundamentalists who wear the scarf. General Muslims don't.

I think you're being very dismissive of someones upsetting experience. This poster noticed a very real difference once she wore the human and you've just airily dismissed it. I've seen women in hijabs gave abuse shouted at them in the street while they're out with their children. The discrimination is real and can have a terrible impact.

Hijab not human. Excuse the other typos too.

Well I think a lot of Muslims would perceive an attack on Islam and an attack on our prophet as an attack on us (not physical in this context of course) as it is something we hold very very dear

Well they’re going to be rather frustrated then living in a western society where all ideologies are fair game for critique, satire and mockery. And this is as it should be.

Also you have referred to scripture and culture as somehow separate. They are not. Islamic ideology emerged from a specific time and human culture. There is no hand of the divine in it. There is no eternal truth to it that mankind corrupts. It has subsequently has been interpreted in specific cultures, whether they be the Ottoman Empire, or ISIS’ “caliphate”. Islam is whatever those in power say it is at any given time.

You may hold your belief to be very dear, BUT it's doesn't mean that others should be unable to give their opinions or criticize. Most people will give fair criticism, some of us who don't believe are often baffled by those who do believe . It makes no sense to me to take advice or give undue reverence to books that have, maybe inadvertently or unintentionally, caused huge damage and harm to actual human beings. Live as you want, but it's not a get out of jail for free clause, no matter what you believe. If I said I worshipped the moon it wouldn't. And many people do awful things in the name of any religion.

This.

Personally I don’t like or respect any religion, although I support your right to believe what you like. If that makes me phobic for some reason, I couldn’t care less.

@FelisCatus0 I don't think I'm a fundamentalist... I'm just a normal person, I think. No different from lots, I go to a mosque sometimes but apart from that I probably do most of the same things you do - I'm definitely not an outlier in my friendship groups.

I'm not a scholar or an expert, I don't claim for one moment to know all the 'right' answers, but I'm happy to try to answer questions based on my own personal experiences.

'General Muslim' made me smile, it made me think of a stern looking Auntie going "Stop it! That's silly... and a little bit suspect..."

How is not sitting next to someone discrimination? I ask this as a white female agnostic who spent many years living in the Middle East and has experienced real discrimination and racism first-hand. White women are ok game to be sexually harassed and assaulted every day in every place because everyone 'knows' that white women will sleep with everyone.

I know that Christians in Saudi Arabia (often Filipinos) are thrown into jail for celebrating Christmas, privately, in their own homes. And someone else who was imprisoned for watching the film "The Passion of Christ" for watching it on a DVD in their own home. And another man whose necklace with crucifix, which belonged to his dead mother (hidden under his shirt and revealed when he bent over to take something from a freezer in a supermarket) was snatched from him. And the muttawa, who beat women who don't cover their hair?

And Afghanistan, where women's rights are virtually non-existent. And Iran, where school girls are poisoned and women beaten, imprisoned and sometimes killed for not covering their hair. I know a man in Egypt who was forced to divorce his wife because he called for the Islamic equivalent of a reformation, as this made him an apostate and an apostate cannot be married to a Muslim.

I know of at least one Kuwaiti who has claimed political asylum in the UK because they converted to Christianity and have had a death sentence imposed on them.

The writer Salman Rushdie has had a fatwa (religious judgement) calling for his murder because of a book he wrote about the so-called 'satanic' verses.

How many churches are there in Saudi Arabia? I'll tell you: none. And it's the law in Saudi Arabia that all citizens must be Muslim. The penalty for apostasy is death. By contrast, non-Saudis who convert to Islam are celebrated.

In Saudi Arabia, non-Muslims not allowed to travel on road that lead to Mecca, let alone enter the city.

In Egypt, Christians are massacred in churches and persecuted. It is virtually impossible to get the funds to maintain or repair a church. At the same time, there is a 'store-front' mosque on virtually every block in Cairo.

Many Muslim countries do not allow Muslim women to marry Christian men, thus reducing the size of Christian communities. If a Christian woman marries a Muslim man, she is expected to convert to Islam, which will often cause her to be ostracised by her family. And in places that have no social welfare safety net, that is a very serious issue.

There are people in prison in Pakistan who are waiting to executed because they have been accused of improperly using the Qur'an.

What I've encountered and what is happening around the world is just the tip of the iceberg and constitutes real discrimination.

A bus driver telling someone they can't bring a cup of coffee on to a bus or someone not sitting next to another person is so minor an incident as to not even be a mere blip, unless a person is looking to see themselves as a victim.

Show me the equivalent western liberal democracies, please, and then maybe I'll take the posts about Islamaphobia seriously.

So there are some very in-depth translations, but let’s pick for instance the verse that’s used to talk about what’s commonly referred to as the hijab, some translations have inferred or translated that it means leaving only one eye to see the way. Looking at the most standard translation, and not being fluent in old Arabic and modern Arabic I cannot see how they got that… at all.

there are lots of classical scholars debating these issues and then there are more contemporary ones. I learned Islam from the more contemporary ones (amina wudud, Ingrid mattson, Laura McDonald, Adam deen, Myriam cerrah) these people wouldn’t fit the bill in the Islamic sense for scholar but they do very much in the western sense and this is where I learned my ‘academic Islam’ as that is the Islam i know and the one I believe in. There are some scholars who sit in the middle like Ismail menk and shabir ally, dr ally in particular has a YouTube series on some heavy issues in the Muslim community. I believe these people are answering some of the big questions and especially the western academics, leading some powerful grassroots movements like Amina wudud

but I am not dodging any questions, I’m not sure what sort of answer is wanted from me. An acknowledgement that these things do happen? I mean I’d be blind and stupid to claim otherwise. But do I think they are what Islam stands for? No, or else I wouldn’t have become Muslim

but I am not dodging any questions,

You are not only dodging questions you are not addressing points that don't fit your narrative.

OP, please come to Rye Lane Peckham late morning/ afternoon where the fear of criticising any aspect of Islam has manifested in the liberty taking of Muslim men preaching anti Christianity and blatant misogyny over a microphone .
Shop workers have to hear the hateful diatribes as the bullshit travels through the open shop doors whilst we acknowledge the tolerance for Islam and it's many malignant expressions in this country that most certainly would not be the case vis a vis Christianity in the country that the hatemonger comes from.
However, I have hope.
A fellow sistah got tired of the shit Saturday before last and cussed preacher man in the most needed Jamaican parlance, this breaking the paralysis that everybody felt, no matter which race or ethnicity to challenge this pious vagabond who deemed him and his superior to what he voluntarily came to live amongst in Peckham.
I bet he and that type would never dare to harrass the people of Hampstead, Belize Park, etc who do not have as many socio economically vulnerable as Peckham .
There is a reason why those who are Black and not Muslim and male who have to do time in prison are often told. " Don't turn Muslim" .
Nobody likes a pious arsehole who thinks that their brand of misogyny is better than anybody else's and any criticism of it is classed as 'phobia" whilst the other two Abrahamic religions and any expression of it is up for grabs in the piss taking arena.....and in a country that has far deeper christian-Judeo links than Islamic.

And my personal bug bear will always be women who try and defend their internalised misogyny as "agency" or "identity".
Urine, legs and rain come to mind.

Islam is so wide ranging that not all countries speak Arabic - all of them mine included have the Qur'an in our own language.
Perhaps there is no 'accepted' English version because there are no English Muslim countries with a religious oversight body to 'approve' it.

The problem is many muslims believe the Quran is the literal word of God and Muhammad is an example for all times. Christian and Jews don't believe this they believe it's been written so it can be reformed to fit the views of the day. Also Jesus arguably was a lot less of a decisive figure, he waged no wars , never killed , took no slaves , never married, made friends with a prostitute he can neatly be included in modern life. I'm atheist but Jesus was like a hippie in comparison.

Most westernised people aren’t Islamophobic at all.

When I went to a private girls convent we had Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and we all embraced those cultures but head coverings weren’t in fashion or practiced then.

I will say that a lot of what I’ve seen in the media eg re the more extreme muslim practices is what puts some people off the religion. I’ve spoken with 2 young muslim men in my office who agreed with this practice and didn’t say they wouldn’t carry out honour killings. Then there are my Muslim friends who’ve been forced into marriage not arranged. People like eg my DM and her friend don’t think women have to be covered and seen to be subservient to men.

I’ve spoken to a young Iranian woman in this country who wanted a divorce but was told under sharia law she couldn’t get one. I know another Pakistani woman who got a divorce but she seems more liberal in dress and hair covering practice.

I certainly am not Islamophobic and it actually insults me when someone I don’t know assumes that I am, without talking to me.

By contrast, Islam was spread largely through a desire to avoid being taxed for being non-Muslim and the sword, which is why that weapon appears on the flag of Saudi Arabia.

What would happen if Matt Stone and Trey Parker did a new show called the Book of Allah, and mocked the the supernatural beliefs of muslims on stage night after night? Would Islamic clerics calmly stand outside of the theatre politely handing out leaflets to theatre goers and inviting them to learn the real story? I doubt it.

I don't believe in discriminating against a person for their beliefs, and openly targeting individuals for ridicule and questioning is unfair. But as a religion, I find 'Islamophobia' a troubling term. A phobia is defined as an irrational fear. Fear for your life after exercising your absolute right as Charlie Hebdo and Salmon Rushdie did is not irrational. When a lad dropped a koran in school and was expelled, his mother publicly begged for forgiveness and basically for the childs life.

I have sympathy for individual muslims that suffer discrimination as a result of the action of a few, but maybe they need to tackle these idiots first before labelling all and sundry "Islamophobic"

Are you saying what I’m saying is shit or what France is is shit?

French law was changed and passed re covering of faces in public places and France is a secular society and has been for many years. But their school holidays follow a mostly Christian calendar.

I don’t deny that it’s used against Muslim and Jewish minorities. However, there have been cases where someone wearing a cross in a public facing role has bern told it’s not suitable. For me, personally, I don’t mind what people wear whether it’s cultural or religious. But I was pointing out this is France’s stance.

What points do you want me to address?