I am surprised at the level of Islamophobia on Mumsnet

[Cyclebabble]

I have seen a number of threads on Mumsnet over the last couple of days that question relationships with Muslim men, Muslim Marriages and suggest that Islam is an extreme religion looking to take over the world. I am a Hindu (nominally at least), but come from a country where inter faith marriages are common and where I am friends with and related to a number of Muslims.

Guess what. They are all normal people just looking to get on with their lives, doing the best for their family and friends. They are good citizens and they harm no-one.

There is a building view on Mumsnet that Islam is dangerous, repressive and looking to take over the world. It is now different to any other religion, as are the people.

Which Muslim bodies are demanding extra rights? Stop preaching this hatred. Muslims obey the law of the country they're in, it's one of our beliefs.

meh. I am an atheist so if i obeyed my husband as much as any deity it would amount to zero.

I got married in a registrar's office, and there was no obeying in anything i said. I would have either requested different wording or declined to marry. I haven't been in a christian wedding that includes the "obey" part since about 1990 when one of my nieces had it included and i had to restrain myself from standing up and shouting "make him say it too"

Having said that. I was at an extremely fundie wedding the other week where not only the preacher banged on a LOT about how now the chap is head of house and her job was to do what he said, they included it in their self-written vows too (him: i am in charge and will do my best to make good decisions. her: you are in charge and i will support whatever you want). That was extremely uncomfortable, luckily the groom knows me and had warned me in advance.

TBH I think that is absolute rot. I can understand why, in the days when women weren't allowed even their own bank accounts, some of that may have been practical. But my mum - bank account thing applied to her - didn't say it either, and my dad wouldn't have wanted her too.

but that all strays from the point.

Still interested in the weight of a woman's voice compared to a man's in a sharia court.

Muslims don’t integrate into other societies

Um, in the UK we have Muslim MPs, a Muslim Mayor of London and until recently a Muslim First Minister of Scotland. Muslim peers. Muslim judges. Muslim academics. Muslim healthcare professionals. Muslim authors and Muslims in all other professions and roles.

WTF is going on with Mumsnet at the moment? Have the Great Replacement nutters infiltrated or something?

the word "hatred" in your comment is hyperbolic and unhelpful.

An example of extra rights would be the family who took the Michaela (sp?) school to court. The ethos of the school is very clear, but one family wanted extra prayer time. They could have decided that school wasn't for them - but no they dragged them to court. And for sure, that case may have consolidated/solidified some laws/practices.

But it was most definitely asking for extras.

That wasn't a Muslim body, it was a student.

And there is Christian worship in schools in the country, so not an extra right.

If you don't see how insisting that Muslims are demanding extra is harmful then all your grandiose bleating about fighting for women means fuck all.

Muslim women are some of the most disenfranchised in this country.

You remember Banaz Mahmood? It was a white woman police officer who turned her away and accused her of acting. She was then killed.

I'm so sick of this posturing by you and others.

That's not the point I'm making - I'm pointing out the similarities between Christianity and Islam.

you are such a charmer.
ok so it was one family. And that one family have made an impression.

You can get in the sea with your "grandiose" stuff. You are the one using stupidly hyperbolic language.

You are the one acting like Mother Teresa when nothing in your posts shows you have done a single thing for women, let alone Muslim women.

I see through you.

If you don't see how extrapolating one student into 'Muslims are demanding extra rights and trying to bend age old laws' then you wouldn't understand the meaning of hyperbole if it bit you on the nose.

You are being silly. I do plenty for women, i have outlined on this thread some of those things that are relevant to the conversation.

What i see of you on this thread? sniping from the sidelines, nitpicking and generally trying to piss on people's chips. I owe you zip. No explanations, nothing.

I didn't extrapolate anything, but i did misread your comment about organisations not demanding anything, so apols for that.

You totally ignore the violence practised by the extreme forms of Islam. Forgotten the Manchester Arena.bombing? The London bombings? 911? Lockerbie? Bataclan? Charlie Hebdo?And all the other attacks?

I'm perfectly aware that of course that the majority of Muslims are not involved in these murders but it.doesn't take many extremists to inflict something catastrophic on a Western population. Which is why 'Islamophobia', which suggests an irrational fear of Islam, is a.silly word. There are good reasons for us to be wary of the actions of the few.

You would be better writing to hate preachers or people you know with extreme views than to us. They are the ones who attack us and tarnish the name of Islam.

Thanks. If you are aware that most Muslims are not involved in any of this why is it fair to tarnish all Muslims? We would not tarnish all Christians for the actions of a few who took action in the name of their faith. I am unclear why we would do so for Muslims.

It’s an observation - based on the article. I admire their faith, as I said in the comment immediately after it.
Islam does expect Islam to be the main focus of all followers, and as a PP has also commented, the Michaela school case was what I was thinking about.
I don’t preach hatred - don’t put meanings on my written words that you have misunderstood.

I'm not tarnishing anyone

so they shouldn't get married in Church then, surely! The hypocrisy is dire.

More than half those in the UK now are atheist (and about 47% nominally Christian but virtually all those do not vow to obey husbands and Christianity has changed over the years and indeed had a reformation so things moved on.

The proposed West Midlands mayor has had a bit of trouble because of his views on women according to reports although I suppose there will be some who agree with the views express on women

....." “There are men in the household who are letting the women take control... and act like a little bitch”, he continues.
Another participant chimes in that “We know the majority of [Satan's] followers are women. If you empower women so much, when they start following [Satan], society will as well”, to which one of the others replies, “70% of hell is women”.
The podcast host, apparently anticipating pushback from some listeners, interrupts, “People look at us and think, 'oh, you’re a bunch of oppressors'. No we’re not, we’re people who understand our position and understand what we’re here for”.
Turning to clothing and the dangers of women dancing on TikTok, one of the group states that “The mothers need to worry about their daughters, because if she’s dressing like a slut, yeah, your daughter's gonna dress like a slut”.
To resounding agreement from the group, he continues, “the husband in the house needs to understand that his daughter is going to be the reproduction of his wife, so if he doesn’t control his wife how’s he going to make sure his daughter's safe?”
The group cheers in agreement when one of them, discussing how modestly a Muslim woman should dress in public, states that “If you walk past a woman, you shouldn’t even hear her heels”.
Agreeing that a Muslim woman’s father, brother, husband and son all have a “responsibility…over” her, one of the group posits that if a woman is about to leave the house, one of those men “should say, where are you going like this, cover yourself up”.
Yakoob agrees, commenting that a husband is “given that authority by Allah”.
“If he doesn’t use it…” adds the solicitor, shrugging his shoulders in one the clips posted, to, and then deleted from, Instagram.
Elsewhere in the segment, one of the men delivers a message to women who object to being told what to do by men. “Pathologising masculine authority as abusive is the fastest way to let everyone know you’re unmarriageable. I’m sorry your father failed you, but nobody with any sense of [honour] is going to endure you”, he says. Yakoob can be seen in the surviving video footage banging the table in agreement.

https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/minted-minds/conversations-that-matter-WsAC4UBleP3/#google_vignette (from the 57 mins. in)

@Xenia if you see my post further back. I actually made a point of their being cowboy imams going around social media at the moment condemning women for visually everything. I also pointed out that they where not worth listening to and spreading a lot of hate towards women.

I then recommended reputable scholars to listen to of Mufti Menk and imam suleiman.

These cowboy imams are quite embarrassing and are using social media and people are seeing it and then 'shouting, you see islam is evil'

However, islam is very deep and can't be defined by one of these idiotic podcasts.

''Instead of accepting that some members may think or act in disagreeable ways, one dismisses those members as fakes.''
Its called the 'no true Scotsman' argument.

@Xenia thank you.

Let us hope the West Midlands does not favour such retarded attitudes. I suppose in as much as this individual campaigns on Gaza, it might be expected. An educated man who still finds time to engage with this stuff and seek public office is something women need to be wary about. You don't need to be ignorant to oppress people or have hateful ideas about women and their status. You just need to get a bit of power to go with it, it seems

I live abroad now, but used to live near to Manchester. There were entire areas where people were worried to go and walk down the streets. Streets that my uncles and their friends (different nationalities/cultures..whatever, just friends) walked down as kids and young men. It feels frightening to be around these areas, a friend and I were both very aggressively shouted out when 19/20 years old, for no reason and once almost run off the road for ignoring advances (we both had boyfriends) We used to get on the bus into Manchester and go through a certain area and the bus atmosphere would change as people were often threatened and robbed of all their money, rings etc
This was back in 2001 ish, haven’t lived there since then. I’m now an immigrant in another European country and respect and admire their culture, integrate fully and have friends and acquaintances from all walks of life.
People will call be racist for saying the way it was, even back then, it’s not racist and just would not be accepted in the country I’m in now

There's been an influx of extremist influence in many countries leading to a lot of niqabs. The majority of Muslims are Sunnis but this very strict version based on literal interpretation of the Quran is Wahabbi. It's from the Middle East.

Peoples who have been Muslim for 100s of years, without even wearing the headscarf are being shamed, lectured to and intimidated for not covering up.

Not sure if you're Muslim from your posts but in my home majority Muslim country this is becoming a real problem and sowing division. It doesn't matter what you say about not being supposed to judge, we have religious police etc checking people's national identity cards for their religion if they look Muslim and eat during daytime Ramadan! Sharia law was supposedly only applicable to Muslims in personal matters such as family court. But it's extending further. We even have cases where a man converted to Islam before divorcing/passing away so the kids were removed from their mother and put into an orphanage because Muslim children have to be raised in a Muslim family. It went all the way to the highest court. The decision was overturned but who in their right mind would even agree with such a rule?

Using religion to control people isn't a Muslim only problem obviously, Christians also had it but in 2024 Britain being a strict Christian will lead to you being mocked, shamed and criticised. Most cultural Christians are actually atheists.

Jewish communities are different. For one, they're a minority, just like Sikhs and Hindus. They'll never be a large enough body to influence any form of public policy unlike Muslims, in the UK.

I cannot speak for Jews or Muslims as I am Christian, but it is also numbers. There are about 3m + muslims in the UK and only 200,000 jews and a lot of the jews integrated and indeed inter married etc, although of course not all. It does happen with most groups in a few generations anyway which I am hopeful we are not on the brink of a big issue. In about 1815 some of my ancestors who were Irish moved to NE England and a few others after the famine and they lived in Irish communities working on farms and as coal miners. Yet in 2 or 3 generations they were marrying the English.

It is the radical elements that are the problem - Nigeria pretty much divides into Christian and Muslim and some of the violence there is caused by extremes like Boko Haram. A lot of it comes from poverty for all groups and lack of education. Other than funding some extreme things ( a very very big "other than") I don't think the oil rich Saudis spending money like water in the 1970s in London and buying race courses have ever been a problem in the UK for the majority of the 67m people in the UK. Most UK muslims live in harmony with Christians in the UK. If you feel disillusioned with a country as it is not the promised land or other people get to be Prime Minster like Sunak and you are finding it hard to get any sort of job then you tend to feel fed up. Hopefully the essence of Islam and even things like no drugs, no drink mean there is less rather than more trouble. We shall see. I was just pretty surprised by the words of that podcast. I am not suggesting it is typical of all Muslim men but we should all continue to have the right to call out sexism when we see it (and also the other way round -those against equality and women's rights have a right to argue for the other stance if they want as long they don't push women around or act against the law).

For those in London who may be want a woman in charge for a change the only candidate who might unseat Khan who otherwise will win a 3rd term is Susan Hall so I do encourage all London voters to vote tomorrow. Even if you want to vote for someone else do vote - women fought hard to have the right to vote.

If we want to learn abut Islam, you are right to offer good sources.

The problem with the rogue Imams is that, of course, impressionable young men are listening and agreeing with the kind of tripe that @Xenia described. That is worrying in the same way far right extremists influencing young white men is worrying.

young men are listening and agreeing with the kind of tripe I would include Andrew Tate in that. There are some disgusting male influencers about now and is important we all as mums educate our sons to respect women as equals

Quit the ageism.
Quit the racism too, come to that, but mostly stop with the ageism.

Over 55? A large number of us were at the Rock against Racism, in the anti Apartheid marches in the 80s.

But it's apparently ok to dig on someone for their age, it's one of the last (along with ableism) acceptable "isms"

Shame on you. If you're lucky you'll be older too, someday. You'll complain about it then.