Teknevra

Just wante dto point out that Islam is not the same as Sharia?

Masses of Muslims never followed the Sharia and never intended to. (lets take for example the Turks/Mongols who still adhered to the Törü when converting to Islam, or all the locals and indogenous people who stayed with their local customs, or many Sufis).

Just as a quick reminder, just because you talk to a Muslim it does not mean that they have revealed anything about their moral or political stance.

When we talk about Islam, we don't necessary engage in a normative moral discussion. We don't discuss law or politics.

I know this is hard to swallow for all the Islamists or those who may ahve grown up among them, because they long for some sort of revolution through "the unification and masses of the unified Ummah" and kinda perceive all the Muslims who literally do not care about any form of social, political or religious revolution, as traitors, but we just don't care. We never promised to help those guys. Its their fault if they beleived they will receive backup from the Ummah. And its their fault if they relied on us in the first place if they never asked us. You can't count on someone to whom you never received a promise or consensus.

And if you think that Islam = Sharia, because 90% of your understanding of Islam is law, then it is up to you to inform yourself about what else exists in that religion you claim to follow.

Back about a year ago when I was in the miserable Salafi hellhole, I thought that Islam was this evil force whose only purpose was to make the masses complete slaves, incapable of thinking past a certain framework. To destroy in the name of "reformation" and to strip away the joy of life while reaching for the hereafter.

Salafism made me think that anyone who didn't follow the rigid, ultra dogmatic structure of Islam was a Kafir, and all Muslims do is pray all day, destroy everything "haram" and speak badly about others. Well, cut back to reality and I see none of that. I never meet these people IRL.

Even on the internet, I cleansed my feed. It went from Salafi reels talking about stuff that was haram or whatever, to ordinary Muslims doing things like playing guitar, having fun, making art, etc. and they were all somehow related to Islam targeted for a Muslim audience, and all of these reels get hundreds of thousands of likes, whereas the Salafi or lecture ones only got maybe from 3k-50k.

So really even online, Salafis aren't a loud minority. It was just I purposely CHOSE to surround myself with Salafis, so that's why everything looked so bleak.

I started learning about Islamic history and cultures that Muslims are a part of, from the Rashiduns, to the Abbasids, to the Ottomans, to the Mughals, to the Malians, to the Swahili city-states... And I was amazed.

And then I kind of had an upbringing, realized that spending hours on the internet all day was doing me no good, and decided to actually go back to talking to Muslims in my life again IRL. They're nothing like the fundamentalist demons I encountered in some spaces.

Once I surrounded myself with regular Muslims again, things looked more colorful. I started to realize that Muslims aren't these demons that ex-Muslims, Islamophobes and even a lot of people in this sub make them out to be. They're just... people who live regular lives, think like regular people and enjoy regular things.

Even most of the BS you hear online about "Muslim countries being nightmares to live in" come from Westerners and Hindutvas who have never stepped foot into them, and just parrot whatever Islamophobic narrative they hear on the internet.

And then there's the talk about my home country Bangladesh turning into an "Islamist Shariah hellhole" that I keep seeing. Well, I live here and the music and film industry is doing better than ever... Natoks are getting millions of views in just a few hours on YouTube and majority of the women here still wear sarees/regular hijab. TBH, it's as expected, a lot of such claims are from chronically online people (most living in the West, for some reason) who get their perception of reality through Facebook bots.

Not saying people here aren’t still defending stuff like SA and child marriages, cuz they definitely are… but that’s literally been Bangladesh since forever. Nothings changed smh.

This might be controversial and feel free to disagree with me. But the threat of Salafism is not as big as people here make it out to be. Most Muslims are, well, moderate. Most don't care about what some random lecturer on Facebook has to say. Most Muslims are still heavily culturally inclined and aren't chronically online enough to doomscroll through fatwas or care what some random Redditor has to say.

It's just due to the internet amplifying certain voices, the extremes get more attention.

But even then, I haven't seen anything related to Salafism in a really, really long time. I almost completely forgot that there were Muslims who see music, movies, drawing, etc. as haram, especially considering all the Muslims I met love those things, especially among the older (and more conservative) generation.

So yeah, the internet is not a reflective of reality at all. Most Westerners are not pro-Israel, most Muslims are not Fundamentalists, most Hindus are not Hindutvas, etc.

I feel like a lot of people in this sub need to hear this. I do understand that some of yall might have grown up in extremely restrictive communities, but for those in less restrictive environments who used to shackle themselves with internet hellholes like I have... I can promise you, reality is far less grim than people make it out to be sometimes...

I came from a Christian background, so it’s quite easy to imagine God either as Jesus, or an old man.

With Islam, it’s hard for me to imagine god when either praying or simply thinking about him.

Do you imagine him as a man, the universe, light, something completely different, or nothing at all?

Why is it either full coverage or non at all?

Why don't we see people wearing a head scarf but short sleeves?

I tried and actually couldn't find a picture of that.

In all the flavors of Islam practiced this single thing seems to be so binary.

Since it's Muharram, I just wanted to know your opinions regarding this.

I've talked to some fellow Shias who have done this before when they were kids, and they kinda stopped.

I haven't talked to a fellow shia who has done this as an adult though, plus some marjas says it's forbidden.

Like no cap, the only songs we have are non instrumental songs and accapellas (thanks to salafis :/) and most of these songs suck.

We need more Islamic music that suit todays style (pop, rock, jazz, Lori, ect..) , + these songs tend to make people more loving and appreciative of islam as well as happy and glad to be Muslims.

Thoughts?

Muslim Progressive Zohran Mamdani Eyes Historic Upset In Crowded NYC Mayor Race | Mineola Daily Voice https://share.google/gAyet4U5hogJEnvLQ

I’m in Europe currently, and the prayer times are outrageous.

Prayer at 4, then all the way to 11 pm at night.

How do you manage to stay awake and get in all your prayers?

I fully believe in Islam. In fact, I find it impossible to deny the existence of Allah. Void or coincidence couldn't have sustained life, as it has been, for as long as we've known it. I also believe in the Quran, due to its exhaustive nature and consistency with science.

However, some details in Islam have me thinking and second guessing. For example, a guy being able to have four wives, the barbaric punishments for some sins, and ultimately the extreme opinion against gay people.

I just find these, among some other things, hard to grasp. I cannot wrap my head around the idea that we are instructed to despise a group of people, who most likely have no say over who their genitalia responds to. Much less, how it is a stereotype to think and ensure these people feel that they are destined to hell, if they seek what heterosexual people are encouraged and ASKED to acquire, i.e., love and stability. Every single concept that is rather aggressive or jarring seems to send a wave of confusion in me.

On one hand, things align with my logic and principles, while at the same time, other things are completely parallel and I cannot fathom or see how they make sense. I don't know if this will make any sense to anyone.

1. I don't mean the US army, British army, French army etc which serve western colonial purposes and wages unjustifiable wars. But let's say a Muslim living in Zimbabwe or Guyana wants to join the national army there to defend the country? Would it be haram since the country is non Muslim lead by a non Muslim government?

2. And what should Muslims living in the non Muslim country do if a Muslim country launches and unjustifiable invasion, should they fight for the non Muslim government of the non Muslim country they live in, or should they go join the invading Muslim forces?