Response to No women allowed! Response lol

I was only stating what I saw during this documentary. I have taken a Gender Relations in North Africa course while studying abroad and have learned much about the ways in which the Qur’an supports equality between the sexes. In every religion the interpretation of its sacred texts can differ from person to person, and these people in England have a different interpretation perhaps. 

The part about Adam and Eve and Islam is very interesting! That class also sounds like it would be worth taking!

So… about that ISNA video…

I just wanted to comment on Tuesday’s class by saying it was both enlightening and extremely educational for me. I do not know much about Islam, but part of the reason why I took this class was to start to understand this religion and attempt to counter the many stereotypes that have been fed to me by the media and the community in which I was raised in. I found that Hamza Yusuf’s speech was very informative and yet completely contradictory of what I was raised to believe. I’m grateful to have been allowed to hear his views and I agree with the avoidance of extremism in religion. I’m curious: what does everyone else think about the speech?

Hit me baby one more time.

22 yr old, Catholic female, seeks 18-90 yr old, Christian male. in USA.

I figured why not just google “Islam” to see what good things I could find to talk about. Well… CNN led me to something beautiful. Muslima.com- International Muslim Matrimonials. First of all, I think internet dating is probably going to be my ticket out of being a cat lady at the age of 30 working from home sitting in my pajamas all day drinking wine straight from the box. What a great way for Muslims to meet. In fact, you can even pick your country out where you want your date to be in. Muslim dating is quite on the rise. e-harmony, match.com, chemistry.com etc, have all been adding segments to their sites for muslim daters. Even when you google “muslim dating” you get over 1, 400,000 hits. That’s a lot. No wonder why Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world.

ps. Omer Mozaffar you will have to read over 2,240 blogs by the end of the semester. you are giving me carpal tunnel.  Good luck.

No women allowed! Response

I would urge you to take Dr. Hermansen’s class called Women, Gender, and Embodiment in Islam.  In response to this video, I am sure that there is discrimination in Islam.  It can be found in all parts of the world.  It doesn’t surprise me to see it in England nor elsewhere.  However, as we all know the media is most likely to point out to the places where negative thinks occur.  They will not show you for example, a place where women are respected and treated very well.  In my mosque, both men and women pray together and (as described by Muslim sources) we even make room for transgendered people in the mosque.  I have taken people to my mosque of different faiths, not for conversion purposes but just for a different experience, and all were surprised by how nice it was.  If you take Dr. Hermansen’s course (the above mentioned one) you will learn that the religion itself is not mesoginistic.  The Qur’an stresses over and over equality.  In addition, many Muslims don’t even know this, but unlike Christians who believe that Eve was created from Adam, the Qur’an states that they were created from one spirit (defusing arguments that men are supirior to women).  Another thing I learned from this class is that both Adam and Eve are blamed for eating the forbidden fruit.  We do however encounter problems with the questions of Hadith (sayings of the prophet which are classified in order of legitimacy). Some hadith (sayings of the prophet) have been thrown out, some classified and wagely authoritative, but some are on the level of the Qur’an (hadith qudsi). There are some contradictory statments in these Hadith books.  I hope, that the professor will touch on some of these.

No women allowed!

Just a few days ago I watched a documentary online about the female muslim population in Great Britain. A lot of the women that participated in the documentary were upset about the way the men have been treating them. There were numerous mosques around the country that were now allowing women to enter them for the reason of space. The men stated that they took up so much room that it was the building that did not allow the women to enter. The women have to pray outside of the mosque walls. One scene stood out. Women were banging on the doors and no one would open them. The people participating were British citizens that were born or have been living in Britain almost all of their lives. These people are not fundamentalist in Saudia Arabia or from small villages in Iraq, they are Londoners and habitants of Liverpool. It wouldn’t surprise me to see this maybe in another part of the world, but in the West?! Are women treated equally in Islam?!

Tyson Foods

I saw this in the news a while ago and thought that I would post it on Labor Day in honor of the subject, but then I forgot to and I missed my day already. Darn. This is fairly interesting though:

A Tyson Foods (they process meat and such) plant in Shelbyville Tennessee removed Labor Day from their paid holidays in favor of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr which marks the end of Ramadan. Some fifty percent of the workers at the plant are muslim and the decision was made as part of a new contract that answered to the requests of the majority and so it was not specifically for religious reasons on the part of the plant owners but rather for the purpose of accomodation.

I find it interesting though that they would chose to remove Labor day and replace it with Eid al-Fitr mainly because the two relate in no similar way. Labor day is a federal holiday honoring the efforts of the laborer while Eid al-Fitr is a celebratory religious holiday.

What I take issue with is this difference. It seems right to me to celebrate a Muslim holiday if the majority of your workers are of that faith; however, it seems ridiculous not to let them celebrate an american labor holiday when in fact 100% of the employees are laborers. It could be to me that I appreciate the symbolism of Labor day and think it ought to be celebrated but I also think it strange not to honor the efforts of workers with such a day.

Response to al-Ghazali’s Book

After reading the assignment that was due tonight, I have to say that some of the things said in the chapters were interesting, yet some didn’t make sense to me at all.  For example, I thought that Chapter 3 was the best out of the four.  The reason I say this is because many of the points he makes in this chapter have an explanation to back it up, where in different chapters he would say something and wouldn’t argue his point.  In Chapter 2, for instance, he would disagree with why people don’t believe in God and would answer their opinions with something like it is little use to argue with these kinds of people.  A quote that I really like was in Chapter 4 at the end.  When arguing with an unbeliever, the Lord Ali said, “If you are right, then neither of use will be any worse in the future; but if we are right, then we shall escape, and you will suffer.”  This really explains it all on why we should believe in religion.