We live in a Muslim country...
Drinking alcohol is prohibited in Islam. And as Muslims, we do not drink Alcohol. A drinker is socially marked as a drunkard. We like to praise our society as one clean of alcohol. We like to attribute the catastrophes that we see in the 'infidel' Western world to their drinking habits.
But!...
The below is a very familiar scene in any empty land. Empty liquor bottles are a very common scene whenever you look at a piece of land that has not been in use for some time...
It's amazing how folks get around any prohibitions. Also amazing what we attribute each other's "catastrophes" to...
ReplyDeleteYes. It is about glorifying self and undermining the "other".
DeletePS.Hope I don't get into trouble for this, but I've brought it up in a prior post. . I would like to make a comment that my kids up at college are not drinking, taking drugs,and messing around with the opposite sex like many of the Muslims from the ME are. A lot of the time the ME students do these things with each other, too. So I don't know where these ideas about " westerners" come from. You should hear what they say they get away with even in the " home countries". One young man wants to talk to my husband to discuss my daughter because he says she's" the purest young woman" he knows. Lol! My husband told him that is not exactly a ringing endorsement of his own folks. Funny thing is...his parents obviously agree with him :-/
ReplyDeleteHere? I do not guess you will :-)
DeleteHere we do not sugar-coat bitter facts.
What you mentioned is very correct. I know ALOT of families here in the middle east who have sons outside, and every one knows that they do every prohibited thing there. They drink alcohol, they mess around and even have children outside marriage (and they leave them with their single mothers in alot of cases) and they do not restrict themselves with any guidelines. They follow no rules. But when they come home it is every one's responsibility to ignore this and pretend that we do not know, and that we assume that they spent their time out as saints. Also, after coming home, they start criticizing every minor mistake people around them do. And when they want to get married, they look for clean hijabi women who have not sinned in their whole lives.
This is the middle east :-)
Let's just say through my daughter friends !'m learning more about the inter-relationships and dysfunctions between male and female in some wealthy Gulf States than I ever planned to know.
Delete:-))))
DeleteThis is why we Muslims are the 'scum of the earth' at this period in history (as per hadeeth told by Prophet Muhammad (s). The majority do not follow Islamic teachings. They are not God-conscious and do what they wish.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, true to a huge extent. People avoid following the teachings of Islam as they think they are difficult, so they skip them in search for an easier life. What they get is a messier life, that's it!
Delete^ oh! maybe not :-) I can show you a lot of other " religious folks" besides Muslims who are doing a pretty bad job of following their faith as well. Plus, there are college Muslims who are doing great...didn't mean to make it sound like they all were like that.
ReplyDeleteThe seed of good does not die easily. Yes, I know in every religious group there is a sub-group which abuses every teaching and skips every rule. But still there is good and there is bad.
DeleteBut for us as Muslims, when we are self aware (or should I say Ummah-aware? :-) ) we feel bitter because we want the best for our people. That's why we self-criticize harshly some times.