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

Exactly, vulnerable women who don’t know any better

Who was the scholar? Yes I have absolutely seen the argument re polygyny as I set out used academically. Having many wives also has benefit when many women would die in child birth

There seems many many Islamic scholars who say Muhammad sleep with his child bride aged 9, ie before puberty (which was an age that was more common).

maybe the last paragraph is a key to some of the anti Islamic sentiment, there seems to be a very broad view taken of “under attack”

Fundanentally Islam is at odds with many modern western values and norms, especially the war like nature, the violence, sharia law and especially the position of women

its basically where Christianity was 5-600 years ago, we’ve seen all this before and don’t want to see a repeat.

Yeah, you can dress it up how you like, it's still sexist.

No Aisha was 9 when the marriage was consummated, 6 when he married her. All the Hadiths has her age as 9.

@Tunnockswafer I believe all scriptures are open to interpretation. In Islam, I’ve been told that there are people who study jurisprudence and give rulings based on their interpretation of scripture. Nowadays, everyone has access to the same information which means not everyone, unlike scholars who have dedicated their lives to learn and understand, anyone can make their own interpretation. So it’s not like only the Bible is open to interpretation. However, there are definitely different versions of the Bible and the Old Testament is a lot different compared to the New Testament. For instance, I found out the prophets who are respected in Islam, were portrayed differently (E.g. Noah is an alcoholic but somehow lived hundreds of years etc.). The prevalent belief was that Jesus was different from the others.

I studied Comparative Religions and Philosophy and Politics. I was encouraged to use the New Standard Revised Version (NSRV) and to ignore the Old Testament because Jesus fulfilled the old laws so it’s not important anymore etc. We were encouraged to read St. Paul’s writings as well as other so-called Saints.

Also, my lecturers were priests…and their explanations were much more different to yours. So they believe that Christianity was originally Unitarian and things changed after the death of Jesus after the Council of Nicaea. They agreed that Jesus did not actually say that he was “God incarnate” or that he “is the body of God”. They succinctly explained that there are 3 ways to find out about a person’s character- what they say, what they do, and what others say about them. So the believed Jesus was too humble to say that he was “the Son of God” or to be worshiped. But they still believed Jesus had died at the crucifix and this is why Jews were considered doomed for causing Jesus’ death. They said Nostra Aetate was supposed to be an olive branch to other non-Christian religions, such as Judaism, Islam, Buddhism etc.

When asked how could God allow his son to die, we were told that he died for our “sins” so that he can save humanity. What I found difficult to get my head around was the concept of original sin because of the fall of Adam etc.

Oh and when we found discrepancies in Luke’s Gospel and the other Gospels, we were told that they were simply eye-witness testimonies which can differ and that whilst Judaism and Islam were scripture-based, Christianity is more faith-based so it’s difficult for me to accept that somehow only the Bible is open to interpretations.

@lysozyme What’s sexist?

@Layalina Where does it say that - Muslim female slaves who wanted to veil were rebuked for impersonating free women?

Don’t judge Islam by Muslims, judge Muslims by Islam.

I'm struggling to think of another religion about which it would be socially acceptable to say things like "we don't want a repeat". I don't think I'm at odds with most Western values, and i don't think most Muslims I know could be described that way either. Like most demographics/societies/faiths/cultures, there are some people who behave in abhorrent ways. But that's not everyone. It's not a majority.

People have different faiths, different ways of making sense of life, and we won't all agree and that's ok. But we shouldn't condemn or fear or hate each other just for our differences.

@Layalina Believing women were considered “People of the Book” so not just Muslims so I’m confused where it says this Non Muslims and slave women are therefore not virtuous and are open to harassment. - where does it say that?

Could you provide your scholars too please?

i no longer have my academic journal logins but I did a quick search and Nate Olsen is one scholar but his article references Mormons which the initial article I read didn’t. I’ve read an abstract from rehana firdaus now that looks familiar but I can’t guarantee it’s the same article as I can’t access them anymore

what about the sharia is at odd? I imagine you mean hadd punishments rather than say universal healthcare or the Islamic welfare state

Did they talk to you around Q theory and the Q gospel? I found that fascinating!

That sons inherent twice as much as daughters, and that women apparently need men to to take care of them.

This is exactly my point and why I often have drawn parallels between Islam and other faiths because they don’t face the same level ‘at odd with our values’ sort of statements

Because over a thousand years ago they did. It was a reflection of the conditions of the time not a damning statement on women forever

I was raised catholic but would now consider myself somewhere between an agnostic and an atheist (although, for years, perhaps from habit, I wore a crucifix necklace). I don’t have any view on this from a religious perspective, but I do from a female rights/equality pov.

I think it’s very easy to overlook how inherently sexist (bordering on misogynistic) the world is. There is a fascinating book called Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez and she breaks down just some of the everyday examples of the natural bias towards men:

• temperatures in offices set to the male norm body temperature, leaving females freezing;
• top shelves based on male height norms;
• heart attacks in women routinely not being diagnosed because medical data and testing are often based on male physiology;
• Poor public transport disproportionately affecting women, who will generally walk more and further than men, as most planners focus on mobility relating to employment and women do 3x the amount of unpaid care work that men do, often resulting in them not working/working part-time but being much more “time poor” vs men.

These are just some examples, and I’m sure any of the females on this site could name a dozen more off the the top of their heads that they have experienced themselves. I have been repeatedly propositioned by my bosses boss at an old workplace (a senior director in a FTSE top 30 company), who wouldn’t take no for an answer after making a drunken pass at me on a team away day, kept pulling me into meeting rooms at work to talk about “us” and harassing me on team nights out to the extent that one of my female colleagues who I had confided in had to essentially run interference to keep him away from me. I’ve experienced being under paid vs male colleagues who I know I was out performing whilst doing the same role. When asking a senior mentor for advice on how to get ahead for the next step in my career, I was advised to “smile less” as I come across as too friendly and risk not being taken seriously.

To get to my point, I think the hijab angle is actually a bit of a red herring here, as I don’t think that it’s that piece of clothing that is really angering women. Instead I think the vast majority of women that are expressing a view are doing so from a perspective of feeling overlooked, underappreciated, taken advantage of and ultimately feeling invisible in a world which is biased towards men. A piece of clothing that, in some circles is imposed on women to wear in order to essentially further dim the light of the wearer is a very tangible representation of that suppression and makes many worry that it is just another form of male control.

I hear what you say that that isn’t the case with everyone and that some women choose themselves, freely, to wear the hijab and I don’t think anyone should be castigated for their individual choices. However, I would ask you if you genuinely feel that, putting Islam, being Muslim etc aside, do you believe that your religion and your culture are promoting and encouraging women to feel empowered in their lives- personal, work, relationships, family, friendships, love life etc? Catholicism certainly doesn’t - hence why I have chosen to dictate my own moral code to live by and why I’m determined to do whatever I can to prove to myself and any doubting men I encounter that I am more than worthy and more than capable of greatness.

To quote the queen herself, Ms Beyoncé Knowles, “Who run the world? Girls!”

I always think thats a good argument for matrilineal systems. A woman always knows who the mother of the child is and its not easy to fake a pregnancy/birth, it’s a much securer system to pass down name/title/property.

But it's not a thousand years ago. So why is it still the case?

If she has rational reasons to dislike Islam, many of which have been shared on this thread, then she is not islamophobic, even if she were to solely reserve her opprobrium for that specific religion.

Correct
It is very vomit inducing to think of a 50 plus man raping a 9 year old
Pedophila

To add to this point, it was a time when women had no rights and female infanticide was prevalent. Bearing in mind, a woman’s money and inheritance was completely her own and did not have any expectations put upon her whereas the son who did inherit still had to provide for his wife and children. Also, it was only about 2 hundred years ago that a woman could inherit and before that everything a woman owned or earned became her husband's property when she married so for Islam to come along thousands of years ago and say that a woman can inherit and that all her money is hers alone doesn’t sound sexist but quite progressive.

What’s more primary socialisation takes place in childhood and infancy, so I did find it interesting that seeking knowledge in Islam was seen as something both men and women had to which also doesn’t sound sexist at all.

Well this is the issue Jesus was a completely different character. I'm an atheist but I find his main teachings benign , basically forgiveness , turn the other cheek. Islam has a warlord as its highest prophet and the Quran is the supposed literal word of God.

@gillefc82 👏👏👏👏👏

good question! And it’s one that’s important because we don’t like 1000 years ago and we don’t live in a perfect sharia society where Muslim males are bastions of moral virtue. Where a woman’s wealth is entirely her own and a husband comfortably earns enough to keep his wife and children and pay for everything. This circumstances don’t exist and until they do the sharia is not applicable. It is even less applicable in the west

for instance in a society where people don’t have the money to eat and children are starving, will people steal food? Yes! Are they hardened criminals? No, so are not or shouldn’t be subject to any hadd punishments because again the perfect sharia state doesn’t exist. The perfect sharia state would be where there is healthcare for all, education for all, no poverty and the main drivers for crime simply don’t exist. As this doesn’t exist then the hadd punishments can’t either

"It is very vomit inducing to think of a 50 plus man raping a 9 year old"

Of course it's disgusting, but girls in those times in that part of the world were married off as soon as they started their periods to older men. And girls typically started their puberty younger than they would today, particularly in hot countries.

Mary, mother of Jesus, is thought to have been around 12 while Joseph was much older.

Most Islamic countries today have a legal marriage age of 18, so that is one example of change.