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 Topic: Do Muslim men influence Muslim women’s dress?

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  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women’s dress?
     Reply #30 - April 02, 2014, 03:38 PM
    First of all, there is no "moderate Islam in Britain" or "British Islam". That is not how it works. Islam doesn't change like that. There are British secular, modern Muslims who barely identify as Muslims except "culturally" or as an "ethnicity". Then you have the more extreme salafi-inspired groups or Hizb al-Tahrir. They are all British Muslims. And between these two "extremes" you have a variety of interpretations and outlooks.

    I'm not going to be like the extremists and fundamentalists and say that Islam is one. Islam isn't just one Islam, but there are only one quran and one corpora of hadith. That is Islam. But then depending on what you choose to follow and how you choose to interpret it, as well as if you are given the freedom to do so (which is not the case in most Muslim countries especially those governed by shariah inspired laws), you can choose what Islam is your Islam.

    I have not come across a single Muslim, irregardless if they are more "modern" or more conservative, who have held the view that Muslims are free to disown their religion. Even those who say that "well, you can't force people to believe" thing that apostates are one of the worst creatures because they "knew" the truth and then rejected it. Maybe I'm a bit bold here generalizing, but I would say that the majority of Muslims in the world look at apostates with contempt, suspicion and sometimes even hate and ill-will. A lot of du'aat and scholars, even those who preach in the west, express ideas how all apostates always "wage war" against Islam (by criticizing and speaking out against certain Islamic beliefs and practices) and that is why the death penalty is necessary.

    I also believe that there was a study conducted where more that half of Britain's Muslim youth (it was way higher than 50 % but I don't remember the exact numbers now, it's out there on the internet somewhere) said that they supported shariah-law and that they wanted to implement it in Britain if they could. I would say that at least 90 % of those who actually support shariah-aw also support the idea that ex-Muslims who are open about it should be "silenced". It has been said before, but Muslims commonly refer to "extremist ex-Muslims" as those ex-Muslims who do not go and hide and who choose not to speak up. "Good" ex-Muslims are those who shut the fuck up and won't dare to criticize the religion they left due to various reasons. That is why within traditional Islamic law and thinking, you can in theory be an apostate, as long as you keep it secret and still outwardly pretend to be a Muslim. This is also a common reaction you get from Muslims who won't back down in regards do the apostate law, and that is "well, as long as they don't go about and proclaim it to the whole of society"... you know, because it causes fitnah and tribulation within society Roll Eyes


    Also, as lua said, there is a reason why so many Muslims who "speak for Islam" like Ramadan and Francois-Cerrah never give an honest and clear cut answer to the "tricky hard questions".
    "The healthiest people I know are those who are the first to label themselves fucked up." - three
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women’s dress?
     Reply #31 - April 02, 2014, 03:58 PM
    Yep true there is no liberal british islam, its interpretation varies depending on the person, family or community, the emerging young generation may perhaps bring a watered down version, id be interested to see how things evolve in the coming years when they raise their own children.. Apostacy is still seen as a major sin here and ive seen family treat their own as if they were dead, that is usually what happens at the very least, it is very sad. 
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #32 - April 02, 2014, 04:14 PM
    I only see a watered down version with mixing. It's hard to view non-muslims as sub=human when they make up your teachers, friends, lovers etc.
    `But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
     `Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad.  You're mad.'
     `How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
     `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #33 - April 02, 2014, 04:23 PM
    ^It's easier when you refuse to take non-Muslims as friends and teachers and lovers in the first place, as many do.
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #34 - April 02, 2014, 04:45 PM
    Mixing is key, I stand by that.
    `But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
     `Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad.  You're mad.'
     `How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
     `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #35 - April 02, 2014, 04:50 PM
    I get what you mean now. I read that a completely different way.
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #36 - April 02, 2014, 04:58 PM
    How'd you read it?
    `But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
     `Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad.  You're mad.'
     `How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
     `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #37 - April 02, 2014, 05:01 PM
    Quote from: Quod Sum Eris on April 02, 2014, 04:14 PM
    I only see a watered down version with mixing.


    For some reason I thought you were saying you mostly saw watered down versions of Islam with mixed feelings on the matter? Made much less sense than what you clearly meant to say, but that's what happened. Oops.
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women’s dress?
     Reply #38 - April 03, 2014, 02:00 AM

    “Living inside the "cage" of Britain won't do much of anything to change that … It doesn't much matter if you're living in Britain or Saudi Arabia …”

    Correct me if I am wrong, but what you seem to be saying Lua is that there are differences, but those differences are complex and not defined geographically. Then your view seems to be that the Muslim population in any country, from Saudi Arabia to America, is a combination of the different branches of the tree you describe. On that reading, the geographical differences are one of degree rather than kind. That both Britain and Saudi have, say,  conservative Muslims who support the death sentence for apostasy – but Saudi probably has more. If Islam is defined by the colour green then sectarian influences in Britain and America just produce a lighter shade of green. The colour is the same, just more dilute for being mixed with sectarian (white?).
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #39 - April 03, 2014, 03:29 AM
    Oops! Just noticed the second page. I thought Lua’s post was the last. Still no-one disagreed with Lua so my last post stands.

    I note your comment, Cornflower, that a high proportion of British Muslim youth support Sharia Law. That hardly suggests a moderate brand of Islam in Britain.

    Just posted a link to this thread on my unit’s discussion forum inhabited by students and academics. I hope it won’t be seen as subversive.

  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #40 - April 03, 2014, 03:48 AM
    Quote from: womba on April 03, 2014, 02:00 AM

    Correct me if I am wrong, but what you seem to be saying Lua is that there are differences, but those differences are complex and not defined geographically. Then your view seems to be that the Muslim population in any country, from Saudi Arabia to America, is a combination of the different branches of the tree you describe. On that reading, the geographical differences are one of degree rather than kind. That both Britain and Saudi have, say,  conservative Muslims who support the death sentence for apostasy – but Saudi probably has more.


    Yes, that is what I am getting at, and I think your assessment is fair.

    I do see that it is a trend among many young, Western-born or raised Muslims (particularly converts) to try to argue that the nastier parts of Islam are non-existent. When I was a Muslim apologist, if you came to me with anything in the Quran (I was a Quranist so that was kind of my thing) that seemed bad (women's issues, capital punishments, slavery, the list is long), I'd give you some excuse. Either it wasn't what the Quran said for x and y reasons, or that these human rights violations were only carried out in circumstances that were nearly impossible to achieve, or that they were only true for a particular historical period and for a particular place and no longer applicable. Now, trust me, all of it is nonsense in retrospect, but the point is that that's what you're going to see very often among Western liberal Muslims or those who are trying to invite people to Islam in the West.

    Now, for the remaining set, and this is the set that you're concerned with in your question since the above likely would say that there is no death penalty for apostates, I think those you found would range from reluctant support to emphatic support of the death penalty for apostasy. If a Muslim believes that Islam prescribes the death penalty, they are faced with either supporting it or reexamining their beliefs.

    I do think it is more likely to find the reluctant support in Britain than in Saudi Arabia. I also think it is more likely to find the people who say that apostasy isn't a capital offense in Britain, as well. So I do think you can find geographical trends, so to speak, but it is impossible to really understand without taking the interpretation issue into account, and that makes it a whole big mess.

    Does that make more sense?
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #41 - April 03, 2014, 09:52 AM
    Womba

    At least part of the supposedly high percentage of "support" for Shariah amongst young British muslims is based on the well-known phenomenon of people in surveys saying what they think that they're supposed to say, and allows for little discrimination in the wide variety of understandings that people might bring to the question in the first place. It's dead easy to give notional or theoretical support to something that doesn't exist in reality and you have no experience of ( if you transplant those YBM's to Saudi Arabia for a year, you'll probably get a significantly different answer ) and therefore can't inconvenience or otherwise make a mockery of your daily life. Saudi Arabia actually executes people for thought crimes, and has a judicial and social apparatus that controls this; the UK doesn't, and, if pressed, the majority of British muslims would not find the Saudi approach acceptable, regardless of how squirmy and casuistical their rationales might be.

    Shunning and disownment of family or community members that fail to toe the line isn't exactly restricted to some muslims; just confining ourselves to the religious sphere, the same dynamic is prevalent amongst the more dogmatic and ideological evangelical communities in the US, Jehovah's Witnesses can be very brutal over this, as can 7DA communities, Haredi Jews etc.
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #42 - April 03, 2014, 12:03 PM
    Quote from: womba on April 03, 2014, 03:29 AM
    I note your comment, Cornflower, that a high proportion of British Muslim youth support Sharia Law. That hardly suggests a moderate brand of Islam in Britain.

    That's debatable. Many western muslims have an idea of sharia that is very different from what you see in practise. They don't see it as human rights violations, but as a true system of justice that will make the world a better place. Now I personally couldn't disagree more, but it's something you have to take into account.
    `But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
     `Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad.  You're mad.'
     `How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
     `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #43 - April 03, 2014, 01:01 PM
    the problem is that their perception of it being a system of justice and goodness doesn't make it so.
    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women’s dress?
     Reply #44 - April 04, 2014, 01:54 AM
    I have been doing my best to ask questions and not give opinions. My mention of Sharia Law was a comment on another post, but I can see how it could be construed as an opinion.

    It is interesting to see some defence of British Islam. I suspect that comes from the link being made between Saudi and Britain. A bridge too far I can see for Josephus and Quod Sum Eris. Of course we have been discussing only the negative aspects of Islam whilst ignoring its positive elements. The approach to family, the elderly and so on. On the Western side there is rampant consumerism, neglect of elderly, inequality etc. I suspect even the ex-Muslims would be prepared to accept the argument is not all one way.

    If ex-Muslims are an interesting species (albeit endangered if not extinct in parts of the world), then practicing Muslims who frequent an ex-Muslim forum are just as interesting. My guess is that the former do most of the postings but the latter would make up the bulk of the non-member lurkers and possibly the members. There are probably lurkers from conservative Muslim countries who would never risk joining. Perhaps billy would be able to advise on that.

    On the subject of whether the fact that Islam in Britain and Saudi use the same holy books and therefore are essentially the same, there seem to be views on either side. I suppose it comes down to how you define Islam. Are the young women in this book, who seem to have very similar values to Western women in many ways, a different type of Muslim or just less Muslim?
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women’s dress?
     Reply #45 - April 04, 2014, 02:33 AM
    Quote from: womba on April 04, 2014, 01:54 AM
    If ex-Muslims are an interesting species (albeit endangered if not extinct in parts of the world), then practicing Muslims who frequent an ex-Muslim forum are just as interesting.


    Confession time: I visited this forum as a guest a handful of times when I was still a Muslim. Not many times, but a few. The reasons I remember were to get updated on common/"new" criticisms of Islam I'd expect to have to one day argue against, to try to poke holes in the criticisms myself for my own comfort (to reassure myself that it could be done), because someone with ruffled feathers linked me here, or because someone linked me here with the intention of showing me an error of mine.

    I distinctly remember reading a thread where Ishina commented and knowing immediately that I didn't want in on it. Somewhere I think I knew that the people here had their act together and were operating with the truth, while I had my work cut out for me, and all of my defenses were just arguments that relied heavily on smoke and mirrors. Glad I stayed as a guest while I was still working those kinks out.  whistling2
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women’s dress?
     Reply #46 - April 04, 2014, 02:37 AM
    I wish I had done that. Maybe I would have left years before, if I had systematically gone through the logic of the arguments for and against in that way.
    I just took apologist fluffy literature at face value, never realizing that apologist lit backing up apologist lit was sort of circular..
    Don't let Hitler have the street.
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #47 - April 04, 2014, 02:44 AM
    ^ Ah, maybe. It didn't do me much good, though. I was definitely willfully deluding myself.

    I wasn't paying attention to how good everyone's arguments were, but whether or not I could even conceive of a way around them (and in theology we all know you often can), and I felt better knowing that there were ways I could think of to squirm and twist and crawl my way out of the more damning arguments I read on whichever threads I had found at the time. It was just a while later that I had to admit to myself that there ought not to be so much squirming and twisting and crawling associated with the truth.

    Edit: I guess the difference is that you never really saw the problem. I was always trying to spin the problem. Grin I guess you really would have left earlier than I...
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #48 - April 04, 2014, 08:47 AM
    Quote from: womba on April 04, 2014, 01:54 AM
    Of course we have been discussing only the negative aspects of Islam whilst ignoring its positive elements. The approach to family, the elderly and so on. On the Western side there is rampant consumerism, neglect of elderly, inequality etc. I suspect even the ex-Muslims would be prepared to accept the argument is not all one way.


    I have found that this easily falls into a caricature. Family orientation, care of elderly is not something unique to Islam, its an aspect of Mediteeranean, Asian, Indian, African cultures with a more collective focus. Nothing to do with Islam. Hindus, Buddhists, Vietnamese, Greeks, Nigerian etc etc families all have this aspect. The hyper-consumerist evil west being rescued by the hyper-transcendental Islam just sounds like dawah propaganda too. The exclusivist, superior claims that are made for Islam have no real worth.

    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #49 - April 04, 2014, 10:25 AM
    Some would argue that inequality is part of Islam, which it is, and that the moral and ethic codes connected to family life contributes to honor culture and other problems. And I completely agree, the positive aspects of Islam isn't unique only to Islam.

    I'm not trying to be negative, but we have to see things for what they are. Trying to highlight Islam's "good" parts does not minimize its negative aspects or make them any less important. 
    "The healthiest people I know are those who are the first to label themselves fucked up." - three
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #50 - April 04, 2014, 10:31 AM
    Agreed. It's negative parts are so bad that it is not worth being a Muslim. Besides, most of the freedom I used to get while a Muslim was cultural rather than Islamic.
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women’s dress?
     Reply #51 - April 04, 2014, 10:59 AM
    Womba

    Even in Saudi Arabia it would be a stretch to describe "muslims" as some sort of monolithic entity - there are real variations even in basic source texts used by different muslim groups ( variety of Shi'isms, Sufi, neo-orthodox Sunni, Wahhabi etc ), and that's before we consider the varying and often divergent selective and interpretive strategies that are being employed by them. Being muslim, even under the orthodox religious interpretation, is not cloning and membership of a Borg collective.

    Your categorisations and conceptions seem to be a tad rigid and essentialised, and a forensic disaggregation might be in order - the muslim community in the UK is very diverse, to the extent that it makes better sense to talk of communities, and acknowledge that there are wide divergences, conflicts, debates and disagreements over pretty much everything under the sun, both within said communities and between them. You also need to get to grips with the fact that there is a large body of essentially secular or nominal muslims who, say, "do" Ramadan in the same way that their nominal and secular Christian counterparts "do" Xmas or Easter.
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women’s dress?
     Reply #52 - April 04, 2014, 11:24 AM
    Quote from: womba on April 04, 2014, 01:54 AM
    Of course we have been discussing only the negative aspects of Islam whilst ignoring its positive elements. The approach to family, the elderly and so on. On the Western side there is rampant consumerism, neglect of elderly, inequality etc. I suspect even the ex-Muslims would be prepared to accept the argument is not all one way.


    I do know that a huge common criticism of my country is the degradation of family values, along with all other evils, but in my experience this is overblown. I know far more families that are loving and respectful than ones rife with problems or disrespect from the children.

    There is one aunt of mine who is a Mexican woman, and her immediate family is amazing. They completely love and respect and support each other, and kinder, more decent, more helpful kids you will never find. If anyone needs anything, they're there. And with her relatives from Mexico, it is quite similar as far as I can tell. She managed to raise a beautiful family without the permission or guidance of Islam, without the threat of punishment, without anything but her culture and some basic human decency. If they had also been Muslim, sure, this respect might have remained, but now with the inconvenient side effect, perhaps, of disliking homosexuals, something that wouldn't have gone well for one of those children.

    Also, the kind of emphasis on family in strict countries can be a problem, in my opinion. You see all the time extreme examples of repercussions when someone in a strict Muslim family does something that "threatens" the family structure. And even without extreme examples, I just find that kind of rigorous expectation of a child to be unfailingly respectful to his parents/elderly to be unhealthy in excess.

    True story. The other day, my husband (a Saudi man) turned to me out of nowhere and asked if I'd heard about the father from Saudi Arabia who strangled his daughter. I said yes. He asked, "Would you call the police if my father did that to me?" And since I'm not crazy, I said of course. In all seriousness, he said, "Even if I told you not to? If it were me, I would not call the police. It is a bad thing for my father to go to jail. He is my father." I wanted to choke him myself, but, whatever, it's how he was raised,  I guess.  wacko
  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women?s dress?
     Reply #53 - April 04, 2014, 01:20 PM
    Quote from: Cornflower on April 04, 2014, 10:25 AM
    Some would argue that inequality is part of Islam, which it is, and that the moral and ethic codes connected to family life contributes to honor culture and other problems. And I completely agree, the positive aspects of Islam isn't unique only to Islam.

    I'm not trying to be negative, but we have to see things for what they are. Trying to highlight Islam's "good" parts does not minimize its negative aspects or make them any less important. 


    These are 'good' aspects of Islam, but they are not 'Islamic', in that they are not exclusive to Islam, they don't belong to Islam. They are universal values that may be rooted in cultural tendencies (like the emphasis on extended family life) that are also seen in other religions and cultures. So yes, I agree that you can say these are aspects of Muslim life that you can say are positive, but they are not Islamic or Muslim.

    (the argument about how stifling and oppressive the extended family values can be, is another discussion, and its not just confined to Muslims, it applies to other cultures and communities where these values pertain)


    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Do Muslim men influence Muslim women’s dress?
     Reply #54 - April 04, 2014, 01:22 PM
    Quote from: billy on April 04, 2014, 01:20 PM
    (the argument about how stifling and oppressive the extended family values can be, is another discussion, and its not just confined to Muslims, it applies to other cultures and communities where these values pertain)


    True.
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