Islam - What do you think?

[ChaCha]

Hello everybody,

I've been posting on MN for years and have met some lovely people on here. I am a practising Muslim, have been for around 6 years and chose this way of life for myself after much soul searching.
I recently met up with some ladies from my PN group here and not an eyelid was batted about my headscarf or the obvious fact that I am a Muslim. We have been chatting online for a year and a half and it has never been an issue.
It shows me that we can live in a tolerant society and that our own beliefs do not need to be forced upon others. I have found the inner peace that I was looking for for so long and this has prompted meto ask the following:

1. What makes you happy/content in life? What/Who do you turn to when you've had a really bad day? Do you often think about death and how does it effect your day to day life?
   
   
2. What comes into mind when you see a woman wearing a headscarf and how do you view Islam?
   
   My thoughts for the day. Thank you. Off to change nappy x

[speedymama]

Let's hope common sense will prevail.

[Blandmum]

Great link, It says much the same as The Islamist....a great read!

[speedymama]

Will add that to my booklist.

[Blandmum]

It really is first rate. I bought it on Saterday and finished it Sunday night.

The author outlines his journy from observant muslim to fundimentalist/fanatic back to his study of sufi-ism.

It really is quite facining, and he makes no bones about the fact that he considered the fanatics have lost their core religious belief, while persuing a political expression of Islam.

[speedymama]

Just bought it from Amazon.

[Blandmum]

I am not Ed Husain BTW! (wish I could write as well and argue as clearly)

[NikkiBFG]

I don't agree with the niqab but again, it all comes down to personal choice...who am I to dictate what people wear??

The problem with niqab is that people think its Islamic and I personally feel it gives a negative view of Islam. I personally make an extra effort when in Hejab to smile at people who catch my eye in supermarket etc so that they can see hey, I am pretty normal after all!

[tinkybelle]

Hmmmm, in answer to OP's questions:

1. My children and my husband and family make me happy. I turn to my dh or mum when I've had a bad day. I think about death a lot at the moment - and it does affect me greatly, especially as I am not religious and do not believe in any kind of life after death.

1. Do you mean a like a hijab? Reminds me of the lovely ladies at dd's old nursery, first of all (we left London fairly recently). Then I feel sad they are probably forced to wear it by men - fathers or husbands. Islam.....my first thoughts are thus: aggresive religion, a threat to democracy in the West and misogynistic.

[NikkiBFG]

Awww Tinkybelle....really sad you think Islam is agressive - its really not. As for our men forcing us to wear hejab....not at all! Its a personal choice....DH doesn't force me to do anything I don't want to do

[prettymum]

i was brought up as muslim, left it around 4 years ago. hated the pressure from my family to wear hijab, and i hated how they used to mix the religion with culture!

my parents still find it disgraceful for me denouncing islam and i dont think they will ever accept it.

personally i think the real teachings of islam keeps muslim divided from everyone else.

[Judy1234]

No one has named me a single acceptable muslim country that respects women's rights. Even those with supposedly fair constitutions (Pakistan following partition when we let it leave our empire or whatever we did) local culture and custom often prevail over the law. You still get child brides even if the law prohibits it but what is worse is that it's getting much worse. Women aren't getting progressively more and more rights in these "muslim" countries as they get more modern. Instead laws are being changed (thank goodness Turkey is holding out) so that women's voice as a witness is worth half a man, so that Sharia law is imposed by conservatives in proably in many cases a very unislamic way and those states that were getting more and more progressive at a time when we thought women would be getting the vote etc are going backwards.

It is a very very bad time for women in many of thse places now, much worse than before. Now I hope muslim feminists will in the UK be working to ensure those countries abroad respect women's rights because I don't think intrinsically women do have to be denied most of the rights they are in all those states by the religion, but they are.

[SueBaroo]

I personally make an extra effort when in Hejab to smile at people who catch my eye in supermarket etc so that they can see hey, I am pretty normal after all!

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Really glad you said this, Nikki, cos I see covered muslim women loads of times in the supermarket and I always try to smile and pass the time of day, cos they often seem nervous with people staring and stuff, which does happen. Feel better about doing it now, dh thinks I'm an over-friendly loon.

[DominiConnor]

It's sad isn't it ?
Last summer an Iranian turned up on my doorstep whinging about how the regime in Iran was torturing and murdering people. He had pictures, of the results.
To be fair to Iran, it was a mix of both sexes.

But he really didn't get what the problem was with his country. It was Iranians, not Islam, not America, but the whole culture. Under the Shah things were even worse.

Israel kills only about a dozen Moslems per week, the camps they force them into typically have enough food and resonably clean water.
Some healthcare is available, and many Moslems vote in free elections.
Ironically thus, an enemy of Islam actually provides a better place to live than most Moslem countries. A Moslem leader who often when days without killing any of his people would be seen as a great liberal.

I asked this guy what in his opinion was the best Moslem country in the world.
Albania.
Yes, really.
Albania FFS.

[Judy1234]

I don't know much about Albania after Hoxha.

What about Singapore and Malaysia - are they mostly Muslim?

[tinymum]

Isn't Dubai muslim?

[Judy1234]

Yes. It is better than some - see news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4719639.stm

That contains a lot of comments some positive and I think the legislation is supposedly fairly fair but comments like this are more common..

" Arab men do nothing in the house, woman must do all of it - they only make children but do not help with them. House work is never done by Arab men. My husband wanted me to stay home all time but I said no and went to work in a bank. I divorced him. We need to change culture or us women will stay slaves.
Sultana, Dubai, UAE"

[tinymum]

Maybe someone could answer this for me. I could have it all wrong so bare with me!

My brother lives in Dubai with his girlfriend and they recently wanted to visit a neighboring contry (forget which one) but were told his girlfriend couldn't go because unmarried foreign women were not allowed in. Can this be true? Or have I misunderstood what my brother said?

[Judy1234]

Might well be. If the country thought they were living in sin for example - having sex when not married. Or just because they are worried about illegal immigrants or whatever. It a horrendous part of the world. We should be invading it over women's rights, not oil. You're not allowed to drive a car in Saudi if you're female.

Nigeria has lots of Catholics but parts of it have introduced Sharia law and enforce it. The Taliban did all their stuff in Afghanistan. Where are the liberal modern Muslims who are tolerant and give women equal rights to men? They are hiding in London. May be North Africa? Morocco? I don't know enough about that area but it may be one of the better Muslim states for treatment of women and rights under the law.

[tinymum]

Xenia I think it was Saudi they wanted to visit. Thanks.

[speedymama]

Sounds like Saudi Arabia. Very enlightened country.

Xenia, I don't believe there is such as thing as a Muslim country that respects women and thats why, given half the chance, the ones who can, head to the West, despite it being full of infidels.

I mean, even that nutty cleric with the hooks dreads being sent back to Yemen and he is a man.

[Judy1234]

I wouldn't be surprised.

I think it's not right that a woman who is covered up would be happy for me to say hello because I have breasts but would not want a man to look at her. It's like walking around with a sign on your back saying all men are rapists really and I need this huge load of black cloth and a grill to protect me from the sexual men of Britain.

[Judy1234]

..they are asking for it.... that's supposedly the case. That men can't help themselves and the only way women can protect themselves is to hide their sexual desirability under lawyers of black cloth and even their eyes because men are wicked and uncontrollable and the law doesn't protect women. Yet here in the UK most men aren't like that so you therefore adapt Islam for these conditions which is why many women don't cover at all even their heads although some will prefer long trousers to skirts.

[DominiConnor]

Dubai is indeed Moslem. My idea was not to use my standards of what a good country might be, but find what they think.
Actually I mostly saw his point about Albania, it is relatively good. Dirt poor, bad civil rights issues, but women are nearly equal under the law (mostly), and as far as I'm aware they've never gassed villages full of their own people. A quite outstanding Moslem state.

The problem with many Moslem countries is that you have to be exactly the right sort of Moslem or really bad things happen.
You must be a straight man of course, but also you must be of the right faction of Islam, of the right tribe, and from the right area of the country.
That's why Israel is nicer to Moslems than Moslem rulers are. They just see them as untermenschen, and for them bombing refugee camps is business rather then pleasure.