Muslim and Muslima – the fundamentalist couple by Fahad

Up Close and Personal Conversations of a fundamental Muslim couple married for few years, their life behind the veil and the beard.

Part 1

Muslim and Muslima were out to attend a wedding, they came back home and discussed the events which happened earlier.

Muslim: how did it go? did u enjoy the wedding?
Muslima: Yes, it was nice but there were a few things that I got upset about….

Muslim: why what happened? Did someone say something?
Muslima: well, I was just sitting and talking about Islam with some of the ladies there and the topic about how we should strive in the way of Allah and try and stay away from some forms of entertainment like movies and songs and etc….and how you’ve kept a beard and I do the hijaab(veil)..and then one of the women referred to me as a fundamentalist just because of these views…I got bugged a bit..i mean why did she call us fundamentalist?

Muslim: Hey, cool down. Sometimes it happens. I get to hear it too…People always say things that they have no knowledge about, but you should know.… The American Heritage Dictionary defines fundamentalism as a usually like a religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.

Muslimah: so what..they think we’re intolerant of the Jews and Christians? We’re not criticizing them – coz that wasn’t the way of the Prophet PBUH.. Instead we even give them respect by calling them people of the book which comes from Same Allah as ours....

Muslim:..true… just hear me out..so next time you can explain if someone brings it up again…the way Fundamentalism is used today, is a fairly recent creation closely linked with the historical and cultural contexts of 1920s U.S. Protestantism (e.g. the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy in the Presbyterian Church). Since then the term has been 'exported' abroad and applied to a wide variety of religions including Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam.

Fundamentalism, as a movement, arose in the United States starting among conservative Presbyterian academics and theologians at Princeton Theological Seminary in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. It spread from there to conservatives among the Baptists and other denominations during and immediately after the First World War. The movement's purpose was to reaffirm orthodox Protestant Christianity and to defend it zealously against the challenges of liberal theology, German higher criticism, Darwinism, and other "-isms" it regarded as harmful to Christianity.

Muslima: so if the word itself was created by western society not any religion, so why do they imply that people of Islam are fundamentalists, when it was created by some group of people which misinterpreted the religion itself? and how does me wearing the veil or you keeping the beard make us fundamentalists? I never considered wearing a veil as a fundamentalist belief. Nuns wear it too.why don’t they think about that?. Besides which, the veil gives me a sense of self respect, I am not harassed and I don’t get sexual advances by men who are strangers to me, and Allah Himself has given the respect to women by making them Mothers, Sisters,Wives and Daughters.. I mean why don’t people understand that women don’t want men to think that they are free to check women out. Shouldn’t that just be our husbands’ right? Isn't that reflecting more love and commitment to your husband? everything in Islam is so closely related. Relationships and respect go hand in hand. Revealing clothes just make you more open to advances by men, who think well if she’s showing it off then why shouldn't we look? Just the way the beard is a sunnah of the Prophet PBUH,it gives you an identity of being a Muslim. Unity amongst all Muslim men regardless of race , status or culture.

Muslim: Yeah, that’s true but its easier for us to say because we acquire knowledge and try and be as practising as possible, but people who find it hard to give up temptations of life call us fundamentalists. Sometimes you can’t blame them, they have grown up in a society which is based on learning from media and personalities instead of a religion beliefs and sometimes they don’t dig beneath the surface to find the truth about what Islam really preaches.

Musima: anyways, every body is born free so we should have the freedom to practice whatever is good for us. Wearing a veil doesn't mean that i am behind bars,It’s the freedom to practice your religion the right way.…I mean everyone talks about Human rights all the time. Instead we are bullied and made to feel that we belong to a different world all together….

Muslim: true, but the misconceptions are spread by people who don’t understand true Islam, and sometimes even Muslims don’t support you. Everyone has been brainwashed to think Muslims oppress women, they kill people, and create havoc on earth…..

Muslima: oppress…that just reminded me…one of the ladies asked me “OH, so did your husband force you to wear the hijaab(veil)?” I kinda tried to explain to her that you never forced me, nor our religion tells us to force anyone to convert like people say and that there is no compulsion in religion. Islam never forces anyone to convert, even in Islamic history our Prophet preferred peace over war unless it was forced upon Muslims. But the thing is that even if you would've asked me to strictly adhere to wearing the veil, it would have been for the betterment of my faith,respect and dignity. Sometimes it is hard to follow, but the thing is that if women understand that it is for their own good and that Allah swt wouldn’t command Muslims to do anything that would bring disrespect to them, it just makes it easier then..

Muslim: yeah, but not everyone thinks that way…even some Muslims don’t…everyone has their own interpretation and sometimes they change the religion for their convenience. Some of the Muslims and some of people of other religions don’t want to learn, or don’t have time to learn about Islam, whatever they hear from different sources they take it on face value. Even because of some weak women who are afraid to Practice the right way of Islam go against it, and they try to show the world that they are oppressed.They give evidences regarding many things about oppression but forget to tell the world what they are required to do..

Muslima: Islam is so misunderstood! I mean people actually look at our way of life as an oppression to our kind. And yah those kind of Muslim women, they are the worst kind. If they cant follow the truth then they should leave their husbands and move on rather then complaining about it They have the freedom do that, but standing up against your religion doesn't make sense...I wish those sisters also make an effort with their lives to study Islam and if they don't want to then they should at least leave us alone to practice the religion as it is .....and by the way those women are the ones who also complain about sexual harassments and disrespect ....... so eventually they are never happy with anything.....

Muslim: Yah, thats true ..I also pray that Muslim men who don't like their wives for not listening to them should let them free and find those women who would want to practice Islam from their hearts, instead of oppressing them and trying to change something they don't want to do... You just cant force anyone to believe in something they don't want to do. A human being who wants to create problems against good people will only increase as time goes by, so we should let them to be judged by Allah(SWT) and Generally over all View towards Islam will only change when people of different faith start learning it and try to acquire more knowledge about the real Islam…. Humans are prone to errors, so you cant generalize a religion on the basis of some people weather Muslim or Non Muslims. I hope people stop listening to everyone instead they should try and learn about our religion from Quran and Sayings of Our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) .

Muslima: true they should judge us by our real religion not by people who try to change it for obvious reasons.....anyways,we should discuss it further sometime later, inshÁllah I hope Allah guides us all…

Veil in Bible:

"Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head...If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head"
1 Corrinthians 11:3-6

"I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God"
1 Timothy 2:9-10

Veil in Quran:

"O Prophet! Tell your wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."
Quran 33:59 ...

they (believing women) should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands' fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women...or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex..."
Quran 24:31