To be upset that I was not told I was breast fed by my aunt?

[Evieanne]

So in my family’s religion and culture, breast feeding a baby who isn’t yours still forms kinship and re establishes part of who you cannot marry and who you’re allowed alone with from the opposite sex even within family and who can help marry you off.

In my case, as a baby I was Breast fed by my dad’s sister and I became my aunt’s milk daughter and I am the milk sibling to all of her aunt’s children - so my cousins from my aunty, through me being breast fed, became immediate family to me and are just like my biological siblings. so her male children can no longer marry me and can be alone with me and can be my guardian when I marry as they are considered my brothers.

So it is a huge thing in my family’s religion.

It took my parents a while to conceive, and they used a clinic to finally have me. There were concerns as to whether I was biologically both of my parent’s daughter, but they loved me anyway and said they didn’t want to know. My mum breast fed me a couple times just in case I wasn’t biologically hers and kept me bottle fed after that, so I know I am the mahram of her brothers and her dad. My aunt breast fed me when my parents took me to Pakistan as a baby to make sure there was no way I wasn’t blood family to my aunties and uncles on my dad’s side because my parents are related and there was no cheating, they were wanting to protect family ties. I don’t know why they just didn’t do a dna test.

But they kept this from me and I found out because my mum and my aunt had an argument about it and I was told by my mum I couldn’t be alone with any of cousins from my dad’s side unless female and I asked what about the cousins from this aunt who breast fed me, they’re my brothers ffs!!

@JoanOfAllTrades
On the basis of what facts do you denouce people as not being Muslims. The same people who you claim are not Muslims are considered as good Muslims by a sizeable number of people.
Has any fatwa been raised against these people who you are claim are not Muslims. Please do share if it has. We all have heard of fatwas raised against people like Salman Rushdie.

Equality is a big thing in Islam, more slanted to protect women’s rights than men’s. Why? Because it’s women who lose out when something happens, such as divorce or husband dying. Also part of the reason why, unlike Hindus where wife pays dowry, husband pays dowry which is solely for the wife’s use and benefit. Same with wages. A husband is not supposed to touch a wife’s wages because it’s his duty to provide and also to safeguard women from being sent out to work while husband does nothing. Old fashioned? Yes.

If men and women are treated differently then that's not equality.

I like your understanding of Islam but you have to acknowledge that there are many other examples where it isn’t as you describe.

You say

Those so-called Muslim men that groomed girls in Rotherham make my blood boil. They aren’t Muslim! They stand for everything that Islam is against! They should be dealt with as per sharia law if they want to be Muslim and be hanged, drawn and quartered - and that’s too good for them tbh. Do you really believe that any Muslim thinks that’s right? These “Muslims” that do these things aren’t Muslim, just as Christians or Jews that commit atrocities aren’t Christians or Jews, and certainly aren’t representative of what Christianity and Judaism stand for!

But the men in Rotherham weren’t a one-off, nor were there only a couple of men involved. And they were Muslims and I assume, continue to be. They all thought it was ok to use the girls as they did.

In Afghanistan women’s rights have been totally stripped away, no education, no opportunity - how is that equality?

Girls at primary schools are learning that they have to cover up. Their brothers don’t - equality? Honour killings? Forced marriages? Cousins marrying multiple times resulting in terrible genetic inheritances.

I’m glad that you love your religion, but you have to acknowledge that there are many less enlightened versions of it that result in harm to women.

Unfortunately you are correct. Not only in Islam do you find men misusing religious laws and texts for their own means. Hitler used the writings of Martin Luther, and more specifically a treatise entitled "the lies Jews tell", to visit atrocities that were so bad, onto Jews, that it has been rightly named holocaust. But that doesn't mean every Lutheran Protestant is bad, or agrees with it. Or every Catholic.

And these "things" (for they surely can't be said to be human) that harm girls and somehow seek to justify it, should be stripped of all their rights! Permanently!

What I have seen, over the course of my lifetime, is that it's usually reverts to Islam that are somehow brainwashed or I don't even know what, into doing wrong things.

I fear that reverts to Islam are always more voracious? I don't think that's the right word! I noticed when I studied for my degree, and looked into Christo-Judaic relations, that as people converted from Judaism to Christianity in the middle ages, it was those converts who were first in line to pull Jews into disputations. If you have spare time and are interested, there's literature out there. Abner of Burgos was one such convert. He was responsible for many disputations, and as an ex Rabbi, he was also well placed to argue against Jews with authority. Even on these boards, on this thread, there is a sister with some unsound ideas of Islam, the true rights, not only of Muslimahs (that's what female Muslims are called), but of all women! For, if one believes that all people are born Muslim (hence you revert back, there's no conversion), then one has to also believe that the rights and protections conferred to Muslimahs, are actually conferred to all women!

Another worrying trend, is that when people revert, the masjid or mosque that they go to, might be one like the crackpot Finsbury Park Mosque. The imam or Hafiz they learn under might not be on the moderate here's the true meaning side, but may be (and usually is!) north of moderate. So they then learn a very skewed lesson on what Islam is. Tbh, these reverts are better off reading the Quran and actually understanding it! I studied Hebrew so that I could read the Torah because whilst the Old Testament is some of the Torah, it's not the whole book, nor was it always translated correctly.

One further point I would like to make. Allah means God in Arabic. Christians, Jews, Muslims and anyone else who has a God, all use the word Allah in Arabic speaking countries. Muslims believe in the same God that Christians and Jews believe in. It is also acknowledged in the Quran, that Christianity and Judaism were predecessor religions of Islam, and their Prophets are our Prophets! From Adam to Jesus. The Blessed Virgin Mother, Mary, is so revered in Islam, that not only is she the only woman named in the Quran, but she has a complete book dedicated to her!

As a Muslimah, all I can do is try to educate others to the true Islam and the true meaning of the Quran. I've done a lot of exegesis of the Holy Books (Torah, Bible, Quran), over the years, in order to understand my religion properly and where it stands in time and place. Perhaps my understanding is wrong but I don't think it's any more wrong than say that of the Taliban and in fact I think it's preferable 🌹

The Blessed Virgin Mother, Mary, is so revered in Islam, that not only is she the only woman named in the Quran, but she has a complete book dedicated to her!

I'm always supposed when this is positioned as a win for women. Almost 50 people are mentioned by name. Only one is a woman. Surely rather than being an example of women being valued as a sex class, this shows a stark disparity between the importance placed on men versus that of women in the text.

This. It’s like trying to use the ‘specialness’ of Mary as intercessor/ Immaculate Conception etc within Catholic doctrine to legitimise no women priests because ‘the Church recognises women’s special role etc etc’.

Women are so special they need to be sideline or excluded in case their specialness rubs off or gets contaminated by contact with the guys with the penises and the power, basically.

These “Muslims” that do these things aren’t Muslim, just as Christians or Jews that commit atrocities aren’t Christians or Jews, and certainly aren’t representative of what Christianity and Judaism stand for!

And no true Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge.

No, not true Islam! Men have, and will probably.continue, to pervert Islam into something so unrecognisable that if any of the Prophets rose tomorrow, they would think it some strange and ghastly cult!

@JoanOfAllTrades Muhammad killed 100s if not thousands.

Jesus never killed a single person

I am so sorry that you feel that way!

Being and feeling close to God has helped through some ghastly, horrific and awful times. When I have felt that I can't cope anymore, or carry on, I have felt God's love and presence, and I've felt comforted. It is God who has carried me through and made me get up and continue.

And I would also like to tell you, that there's even been times when I've visited a church and have felt at peace and comforted.

Well, the biggest fatwa against these evil men is the Quran. I can think of no higher authority!

It's worrying and concerning that you think these men are good Muslims. Or perhaps that should read that you are willing to think of these men as good Muslims, as opposed to seeing how evil they are. Both in deed and intent.

I have tried, and it would seem as though I have failed, to show people that Islam isn't as it's often portrayed because of the misdeeds and atrocities that evil people carry out.

I do not understand why it's so much easier for you to believe 1.8 billion people are bad and evil, then it is for you to believe that these evil people are just that, evil.

Also, these men should be being punished by the laws where they live. And they are. So why would a fatwa be written? And that whole Salman Rushdie thing? He knew he was writing something controversial. He wanted fame. Well, he got that in spades, he just didn't get to enjoy it! I didn't agree with the fatwa then, and I still don't now!

When Christians commit crimes, the media never publish their religion. Why? Because it doesn't incite that same feeling in people. Jacinda Arden had it right when she refused to allow the name of the man who killed Muslims in New Zealand, to be made public. She didn't want to give him his "15 minutes of fame".

Do you honestly think that any normal, sane person, would willingly stand up and say "yes, those men represent what I believe in"? Well, those men do not and never will, represent me!

The only reason adoption was banned in Islam is to do with the Prophet lusting after his own adopted son's wife. Prior to that adoption was permitted in Islam. God has conveniently sent a message to Prophet Mohammed that he could have any woman he desired and he is not obligated to stick to the rules of just 4 wives, he could have as many as he wanted. God remined him that his son is not blood related, guess what happened next, son divorved his wife and the prophet married her(who knows if she was a willing participant). The prophet also behaved worse than ISIS and the Tliban, he used to wage war and kill the men, keep the women as slaves, they had slave market full of women, the prophet's only son is from a slave women called Maria the copt, who was never freed, died a slave. He and his comapanions used to loot and the prophet ket the biggest percentage of that, the rest was divided by the sahaba. Later in his life they were not that happy that he kept all that money for himslef, that's why when he died they didn't immediate bury him like it should've been in Islam, they were arguing who gets what and that's how dividion(different sects) in Islam began.

I have been a Muslim most of my life, to say there's equality is laughable, yes there is a chapter called-Women. But not once does God(whoever wrote it) address Women directly, he addresses Men about what they should do with women, tells them they can do what they like with their wives and their slave women(what you own with your hand-slaves were commodity) it also covers women inheriting half compared to their brother. In the Women's chapter God never address the punishment for rape, nothing about rape is mentioned in the whole of the Quran, that's why in the muslim world they treat rape same way as sex outside of marriage, same punishment as two consenting adults, and if the men or man who rape a woman have never been married before then they get a lighter punishmnet-lashing.

In that chapter God tells Men ways to punish their wives if they refuse sex, even beat her as a final punishment. In divorece the children belong to the Man, sharia law will allow the wife to keep as long as she doesn't marry and as long as the kids are under 7, a guardian is always a man, a grown woman can have her 10 year old son be her guardian if husband is not there. Husband can take the kids and register them with his new wife if he is sppiteful, never to be seen again, how is that equality. As for first wife being ok with husband having another, that's just not true, in Sharia law it's a courtesy to let the wife know but she has absolety no say whether he takes another wife or not. Not to mention that in practice some Muslim men never bother even telling the wife. I have seen so many muslim women who had no idea their husband had a wife in another country. I have also seen muslim women here in the uk who work full time and husband takes all their savings to marry another woman abroad(mostly a teen) in practice Men do as they please and a Women are told she gets to heaven by being a pateint wife.

How can any woman defend Islam or say Women have equality when even after death Men are promised 72 virgins who renew their virginity each time after sex, while Women are told they will only get their husbad in heaven. And Women are spoken to as if they are children, told don't worry you won't feel any jealousy because you will be way more beautiful than the 72 beauties. And jealousy and all these earthly feeling and emotions don't exist in heaven, yet the insecure men who wrote this couldn't give their wives to choose a different husband in heaven. And if a woman dies unmarried she will become one of those beauties in heaven, catering to Male desire. I could go on and tell you all about the loopholes Men find to have more than 4 wives etc. What made me leave Islam isn't the people, many muslims have not read the Quran and practice it in a cultural way, pray, fast, go to the mosque and pick the lovely bits from the Quran. I've left when I found out that these so called extremist are actually practicing what's in the book and they are doing exactly what God says in the book and what the Prophet himself practiced. They are practising true Islam.

Prophets and their families, angels and wrongdoers are usually named.

The reason why the Blessed Vigin Mother Mary is named, is because if you believe in the sanctity of the Blessed Virgin Mother Mary, then you absolutely have to believe in the sanctity of the whole of womanhood.

In that way, can you see now that it isn't because women are less than, but rather that they are more than. Hence equality isn't always equal in respects to things like men not being allowed to spend their wife's wages.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on @JTK50's post @JoanOfAllTrades

In that way, can you see now that it isn't because women are less than, but rather that they are more than.

Honestly? No. I don't believe that you can read the Quran and come away believing that in it women are genuinely more highly valued as a sex class than men. Or even equally to men.

I was raised catholic. The same goes for Catholicism. And there is no version of the Bible in which women are valued equally let alone more than men, either, so this isn't me picking on one religion.

I'm an atheist but appreciate religion brings great comfort and peace to some people personally. I respect that.

I find it hard to respect cherry picking to the extent that you write off any uncomfortable parts of a religious text (or say they are misunderstood) and amplify the parts that are more palatable to a modern reader or listener.

Many religious people do this and it's frustrating because it makes genuine discussion, and acknowledgement of the sexist / homophobic / misogynist etc parts of the text impossible. Those things are simply written off or poorly explained away when in fact they were considered important enough to be included in what the believer believes is a holy text.

Correct. He, and other Muslims and Jews, sp I suppose it's better to say other followers of the monotheistic, Abrahamic tradition, fought many battles against Pagans who didn't want to have their activities, such as orgies, curtailed.

I have mentioned before, and will do so again. There are lots of academic books on the beginnings of Islam. One such author is Lapidus. See if you can get hold of his book! I think you'll find it will clear up some of the questions you may have.

I feel that this thread has been somewhat hijacked. If you, or any others, have questions about Islam and want to actually have a constructive discourse, please start a thread and I will try to answer sensible questions (as opposed to wild speculations, often fuelled by popular media).

And that whole Salman Rushdie thing? He knew he was writing something controversial. He wanted fame. Well, he got that in spades, he just didn't get to enjoy it!

Victim blaming in the extreme.

I just wanted to add that in Sharia law Women get nothing in divorce. Many muslim women always happy to say what's in theory(which is Women can keep their earnings and Men must look after the family finances) but never ever in practice. In practice most couples work and save together, I have yet to see a muslim woman who keeps her wages to herself. What's very common in the muslim world is housewives who haven't worked, stayed at home with the kids and the husband constantly threatens divorce(if she doesn't obey him) knowing full well she has no where to go, no settlement after divorce, he can keep the kids and move in the next wife, yes that happens a lot. And I'm sure the muslim women in here will come to defend this by saying she should ask for higher Mehr(dowry)befeore marriage, so she has something to fall back on, how much can that even be after many years of raising his kids, where would she go? back to her family home, who gave most of their inheritance to her brother? A brother who wouldn't want a burden, at least if she was a young girl he could marry her off, so she stays put. The average Mehr is between 2-10k(I'm referring to the average muslim around the world not super wealthy Gulf Arabs) usually brides spend it on the wedding and the most brainwashed girls are praised for asking only for the Quran as her Mehr, how lovely she is not materialistic. Doesn't that show that Women are better off under the British secular law than Sharia? majority of muslims don't want Sharia law implemented in their country, while not being able to go against it in theory, because afterall its the word of God.

fought many battles against Pagans who didn't want to have their activities, such as orgies, curtailed.

If they were enjoying their orgies as you claim what gave Muslims the right to be judge, jury and executioner.

In fact, Muslims judge everyone else for their lifestyles which do not affect Muslims in the least bit. Why not live and let live.

The response would probably be that "God" commanded the prophet and this followers to do so

I have found your posts very interesting @JoanOfAllTrades

fought many battles against Pagans who didn't want to have their activities, such as orgies, curtailed.

@JoanOfAllTrades
You say that like it's a good thingm

This. You are an adult.

They started the battles. Not the Muslims. Please read academic literature such as Lapidus and learn about Islam!

It seems you are the one judging 1.8 billion people as all and and evil, predicated on the behaviour of few (in terms of % of Muslims). What a great shame you appear to seek an argument instead of open discourse! And it further appears that you are not only judging me, but inferring that I will lie or be dishonest!

I have been honest and open about how I practice Islam and how I was taught about Islam. And that's how my family has practiced for generations! We were brought up equally. Boys weren't allowed to go out and about willy nilly but had to ask if it was okay, just as girls did. Not to subjugate us, but to ask if that was OK and where we were going and when we would be back. I would be astonished if the parents on this message board didn't expect the same of their children! My 18 and 19 year old ask if it's ok to go out etc., and I tell them that they're adults and they both say that's it's not really a question per se but respect. When I used to go (as a much older adult in my forties) and stay with aunts and uncles, if I was going out I'd say "I'm going out now, is that OK?", not because they could stop me but just because it's polite and respectful. And they would ask where I was going (usually to visit one of their adult children) and when I'd be back and have I eaten and will I be warm enough and so it went on! Out of love and concern, not out of control.

I truly believe that some people on here are just judgemental and just want to believe the bad of everyone. Xenophobic in fact!

Extreme facts as well. He has admitted in interviews that he wanted to "raise his profile as an author". Well, it did! That's fact.

He didn't want to get fucking stabbed.