Just curious - how many muslims are on mumsnet?

[Galvanise]

Hello/Salaam,

I know mumsnet has a wide and diverse population and I tend to recognise some MN usernames as regulars. Just intrigued to know how big/small a community it may be.

Of course, I respect that there may be those who do not wish to even identify themselves for various reasons - which is fine too.

I am not asking for 'religiousness' levels or any vital stats! Nor is this a muslim-only thread or an 'no non-muslims' thread.
If you really wish to tell me that you are not a muslim, that is fine too :)

:)

Crescent I've never heard of the committee arrangement but it sounds great. Personally I'd rather risk being out of pocket in this life than the next!

Ansar really is great, as far as I know their finance comes from members, who all pay their 10 per month. I think they also have an investment side for people who want to invest money in a halal way, so some of the funding for loans might come through that too. You can always ring them for a chat, they are very friendly, and based in Manchester.

Alhamdulillah you pay back exactly the amount you borrowed, no charge or anything. They ask you to pay it back in a certain time period, and appreciate it if you pay it quicker, as they can then give than money to someone else, but they were very good with us when we felt we couldn't afford the amount they wanted us to pay back per month, and gave us a slightly longer period to pay it back in so we could pay a bit less. Basically they are there to help. I've been a member for years and they do such good work I wouldn't have cared if I never needed to get a loan from them.

I use Arabic words for two reasons mainly, one because I'm around Arabic most of the time with dh and in laws and two out of habit. Arabic is a richer and more meaningful language than English so personally prefer to use Arabic in some words due to its meaning being stronger.

crescent - re normal mortgage vs sharia-compliant mortgage

"the different between sharia and non sharia mortgages are NOT price"

My point was that what you pay fluctuates very close to prevailing interest rates. There are studies on this that show that interest payments of normal mortgages and so-called sharia-compliant payments of Islamic mortgages are curiously similar. Why?

"the difference is on what the profit is made from - the sharia compliant mortgage the bank buys the house and then SELLS it to you so their profit is made on the house, not profit made on lending you the money to buy the house."

And what do you think is the difference between this and a fixed-term fixed- interest mortgage? In both cases, the bank writes the cheque to buy the house from previous owners, therefore bank effectively owns the house. Then bank lets you live in the house as long as you continue to pay them a set amount of money over a set period of time.

If you see a difference, I would like to hear about it.

it sounds like new cred www.newcred.co.uk/

Alhamulillah crescent the joys of information sharing! By the way, I'm not sure it has to be 8 years, think that might be just an example. Not sure though.

crescent - Funny you should mention the words Allah & God. I was just thinking about that.

In Turkish, the words Allah and Tanri are used interchangeably. And Tanri is a very very old word that we share with ancient Mongols, from before Islam. I'm running it in my head as I type this, but I don't think we have that feeling that Arabic words are more fitting than our own in a religious context.

We also have quite a few religious words of Arabic origin, but they have been turned into Turkish words somewhere along the way and we can't even easily see which ones they are. Like, "jahannam" has become cehennem, "thewab" has become sevap, "niyyah" has become niyet and we do for example say things like "It wasn't my niyet to hurt you", so these words are not just used in a religious context but have become part of the language.

cote thats like urdu, instead of thewab they say sawab, instead of ramdhan they say ramzaan, etc instead of salaah they say namaaz, they also use the persian word khuda meaning God, like khudafiz etc.

I have used committees before, through my in laws. my sis in law normally organised it so i didnt have any issues, i didnt really think anyone would run off with the money!

oh yeah i did do some work with solace, there was one sister who was like 60 and had arthiritis couldnt clean her house it was full of clutter, another who had a caesarean and 4 older kids, one who had newborn twins, one who had an op needing 6 weeks bed rest and a toddler, i didnt do much of the support service, more the household help.

Nailak. How did you manage doing the household help what with having your own kids etc? I would like to get involved with solace when the kids are a bit older and ive given birth to this last one inshallah. I'm v familiar with it as aunties in the local community send out texts about it and the link to the website. I'm just glad it's up and running alhamdulilah.

barakallah fi

i left my kids with my husband, it was like a few hours a week, i would tell myhusband there is this sister she has had an op etc, and he would say you have to go and help her, even though kids drove him mad, he thinks i am purer then him or something because i am a revert, that i have less sins or whatever, and i dont even feel like a new muslim right now, just a normal muslim, but he thinks that Allah must be guiding me and putting blessing in to my efforts, and if i say that it is a duty on us to help our neighbours then it is and he should enable that.

he basically lets me do what i want, and if i say i need you there is open day at the gym tomorrow, keep the kids, he will just remember he needs to keep the kids and not even bother remembering where i am going!

Alhamdulilah for lovely husbands lol mashaallah it's all about helping the neighbour isn't it. Remember that Hadith (can't remember the narrator or the isnaad) but there was a follower of Mohammed (saw) who, when he heard the great rights given to neighbours, became concerned that even inheritance rights would be given to them! I think it's great you are helping sisters out even though you have kids, it's easy to use them as an excuse sometimes subhanallah. I'm really hoping to get more involved some point soon inshallah, so many people are in need but without the right help.

salaam, been a bit quiet here? where do you all live? anyone up for a meet up? cote are u in uk?

Much as I'd love to have a glass of champagne with you ladies, I'm in the South of France.

I'm in south east London what about you guys? Cote you are very fortunate to have escaped the brutal British weather. I bet you are living it up on the sun and snail pâté aren't you? *drools at snail pâté due to weird pregnancy cravings

I have to say it's not a bad place to live

Never heard of "snail paté". I'm not into snails nor paté, tbh. Love love LOVE oysters, truffle oil, and the wine, though

I'll pass on the wine but second you on oysters and truffles. Do you visit turkey much?

well how about we have the meet up at cotes house instead! lol

I am in East London,

Crescent?
hardly?
fuzzy?

talking of the weather have you seen the pics of snow in saudi?