Terminology: No such thing as 'hoejabi'

 Salam,

 

Can everyone please stop using the term 'hojabi' or 'hoejabi'- it's really really getting on my nerves.  Is there ever an appropriate situation to refer to your sister in Islam as a 'hoe'?  Even if she behaves and dresses in an inappropriate way- is using derogatory names the Islamically correct way of dealing with the problem?  On top of that, take a moment to think of the word 'hijab'.  It's the general term people resort to when referring to sisters who cover (at least cover their heads but also people who wear jilbab and niqab are often referred to with the same terminology).  

 

This post is not concerning how non Muslims perceive hijab or covering but more specifically aimed at Muslims.  Knowing full well that within the Ummah, the term 'hijab' is a term of respect for those sisters who adhere to the Islamic rules of covering- is there any justification in the deen at all for coupling the term 'hoe' with it?

 

Some of you may respond with anecdotes; "Oh so and so's daughter covers her head but still wears skin tight jeans and goes clubbing", "Oh that guy's sister covers her head when she leaves the house but then sneaks off secretly with her boyfriend".  Yes I know this stuff goes on, but that's not really my point.  My point is regarding why an Islamic term of respect for women is manipulated into something so disgusting?  

 

As for the stories of women who cover their heads and get up to bad things... well first of all, those who cover their heads but continue to wear skin tight or revealing clothes- that doesn't really count as 'hijab' anyway as hijab really is a lot more than just a headcovering.  Secondly, even if a girl does cover properly and gets up to haraam like sneaking off with a boyfriend etc- why are you blaming her clothes for that?  Shouldn't you be taking issue with her unislamic behaviour rather than her Islamic clothing?  The sin she commits is in doing the haraam act, the clothes she wears are not responsible for her sin.  Aside from which, if your best response is "you can't respect the headscarf so you shouldn't wear it"... in that case, you are advising her to commit more sins!  If she's committing one sin by (for example) having a boyfriend she's committing two sins by resorting to dress in an unIslamic way as well!  Would you like to face Allah (swt) on the day of judgement with the knowledge that you assisted a Muslimah in committing more haraam than she was already involved in?

 

And finally; why is it that whenever people discuss inappropriate behaviour by Muslimahs- they always pick on the hijabis?  Aren't uncovered Muslim women bound by the same rules of Islam as the rest of us?  Aren't they required to practise any faraid themselves?  What makes you think they're absolved of responsibility?  The headcovering is a fard (duty/obligation according to the rules of Islam) for all Muslim women (yes I know there are other rules such as avoiding tabaruj, wearing loose clothing, covering all the awrah etc etc that's a whole other discussion)- it is not our place to discourage other Muslim women from fulfilling a fard, even if they are committing haraam or neglecting other fards.  

 

One consequence of putting all the focus on hijabis, is that i've seen many times when non hijabi Muslimahs sincerely take an interest in the deen and in hijab- but they feel scared, intimidated and put off (by other Muslims).  They say things like "I'm not Islamically ready yet"- as if there needs to be some certification of religious knowledge and purity before a person can just get on with fulfilling a fard that should've begun since they became women anyway.  In ramadan, pretty much everyone fasts with no questions asked (even a lot of non practising Muslims)- no one asks them "Are you Islamically ready yet?", everyone just gets on with it.  Why isn't the same said about covering the head?  They feel that they're held up to a higher standard and more rigorous scrutiny if they cover and don't know if they can handle that level of pressure.  I think all Muslimahs (and Muslim brothers when it comes to other Islamic issues) need to be held accountable and placed under scrutiny- not just save all the attention for the ones who wear religious attire.

Takfeer (accusing others of disbelief)- by Sh Albaani

 Salam,

I don't normally quote Sh. Albaani but happened to find this Q&A on a forum and HAD TO share as this topic has come up so many times and I totally agree with his response to the questioner:

 

Al-Albaani Destroys, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.”Ref: http://shaikhalbaani.wordpress.com/2...re-against-us/

 

Questioner: There are principles, O Shaikh, which some of the youth act upon, from these rules is, ‘Whoever does not declare a disbeliever to be a disbeliever then he is a disbeliever. Whoever does not declare an innovator to be an innovator then he is an innovator,’ and another rule, ‘Whoever is not with us, then he is against us.’

 

What is your opinion about these rules, O Shaikh?

 

Al-Albaani: And where have these rules come from?! And who laid them down?!

 

This reminds me of a joke that is told in my motherland, Albania, my father, may Allaah have mercy on him, related it in a sitting. In the story he said that a scholar visited a friend of his at his house and then when he left he declared his friend to be a disbeliever.

 

He was asked why …

 

In our country we have a custom, and I think it is [something] uniform in the countries of non-Arabs, they glorify and respect, and revere the scholars with some customs and habits which differ from country to country. From these is that when a scholar enters a house, visiting someone, upon leaving his shoes are supposed to be turned around so that the scholar will not have to burden himself by turning around–he should just find the shoes are ready for him to slide his feet into.

 

So when this scholar visited his friend and then went to leave he found that his shoes were just as he had left them, i.e., the host had not respected the Shaikh and had just left them as they were.

 

So ‘the scholar’ said that this is disbelief.

 

Why? Because the host had not respected the scholar, and the one who has not respected a scholar has not respected knowledge, and the one who does not respect knowledge does not respect the one who brought the knowledge–and the one who brought the knowledge is Muhammad عليه السلام and he carried on in this way until he got to Jibreel and then the Lord of the Worlds, and thus the host is a kaafir.

 

This question [of yours], this rule [you mentioned], reminded me of this fable!

 

It is not a condition at all that someone who has declared a person to be a disbeliever or has established the proof against someone, that [as a result of that] all of the people have to be with him in that judgement of takfir, because he [i.e., the person’s situation] may be open to interpretation and [thus] another scholar may hold that it is not permissible to declare that individual to be a disbeliever, and the same goes for declaring someone to be a faasiq or an innovator.

 

This reality is from the trials of the present day, and from the hastiness of some youth who falsely claim knowledge.

 

So the point is that this chain [of deduction] or making this binding is not incumbent at all.

 

This is an open/expansive issue, one scholar may hold something to be obligatory and the other may hold that it is not. And the scholars of before and those who came later never differed except due to the fact that the door of ijtihaad does not make it incumbent on others to take his opinion, ‘that others have to take his opinion.’ It is only the blind-follower [muqallid] who has no knowledge who has to blindly-follow [yuqallid].

 

The scholar, who sees another declare an individual to be a disbeliever, or a faasiq or an innovator, but does not agree with his opinion–it is not incumbent upon him at all to follow that [other] scholar.

 

And this is a calamity which, inshaa Allaah, has not spread from your country to others?

 

Questioner: By Allaah, O Shaikh, it is present in our country, the issue of declaring people to be innovators and declaring them to be disbelievers.

 

Al-Albaani: As for the Jamaa’atut-Takfeer then it is well-known that it is a group that started in Egypt and their fitnah was here in Ammaan before I settled here, i.e., about fourteen years ago. But Allaah the Mighty and Majestic guided them and they became upright on the Sunnah with us. Likewise some of them came to Damascus before I came here, and they tried to spread the fitnah of declaring other people to be disbelievers there, but again, our Lord did not give them success and they returned empty-handed. As for this misguidance, it is still present in Egypt and I fear that some of it may have reached the students of knowledge, and Allaah’s Aid is sought.

 

Al-Hudaa wan-Noor, 778.      

Muslim self censorship

 As a prime example of how Muslims are under pressure to censor themselves, allow me to introduce you to the Shahada flag:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=m%2fHD1Ftd&id=A1020BC76F2D7D431F53373FC422F4CF06805B0A&thid=OIP.m_HD1FtdahxiLkCorkpX8gHaEK&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fterrortrendsbulletin.files.wordpress.com%2f2014%2f12%2fflag_split.png&exph=507&expw=902&q=shahada+flag&simid=608036211955007491&selectedIndex=10&ajaxhist=0

(the shahada flag image appears to have been censored as it's no longer appearing on the post so I have replaced it with the above link to a google image search of images along similar lines)

The Shahada is the declaration of faith that applies to every Muslim and is at the core of what all Muslims believe and the Shahada (which translates as "I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and Muhammad [peace be upon him] is the Messenger of Allah) is what is written in Arabic on this flag.  It is not a specific 'ISIS' flag- ISIS do not have a monopoly on the Shahada or this flag.  

I introduce it to you here today as a statement that this flag is linked to the identity of all Muslims whether they support ISIS or not and I am not ashamed of it.  There is a trend among many Muslims to feel the need to censor themselves, knowing that certain images and statements integral to Islam (such as this flag) are taken as a symbol of something media hysteria has blown out of all proportion and depicted as something we're expected to reject or condemn.  

As a consequence, many Muslims have this tendency to keep quiet about things they should speak up about, to hide away such symbols out of fear of being stigmatised or labelled as if certain aspects of our beliefs are something we shouldn't uphold or be proud of.... or worse, they jump on the apologist bandwagon of trying to appease non Muslims with statements like "we are all peace loving, we are not like those 'extremist' types".  Bit by bit in trying to prove themselves as "acceptable" Muslims, such people will not just stick to the facts or stick to telling the truth- they go a step further in attempting to "distance themselves" from images and statements such as those represented by this flag, even if it means compromising their values. This is gradually chipping away at our identity so we need to really be aware of this and stop doing it:

"Do you then believe in a part of the Book and disbelieve in the other? What then is the reward of such among you as do this but disgrace in the life of this world, and on the day of resurrection they shall be sent back to the most grievous chastisement, and Allah is not at all heedless of what you do."- TMQ Surah Baqarah v85

I realise that line quoted from the Quran may make some people uneasy, but does that mean we hide it away and pretend it doesn't exist out of fear of how others may perceive it?  Isn't this precisely the reason our Prophets (as) from Abraham, to Lot, to Jesus, to Muhammad (saw) and others were mistreated by their own people, simply because they conveyed the message even if it meant facing hostility from the people around them?  And don't take this lightly- with the strength to carry the message came the ability to shake whole governments and societies.  It is that powerful- that is why we are under so much pressure to conform, to fit in with what western governments and culture deem to be "acceptable" or "moderate" or "civil democratic" and to either keep quiet or reject the parts of our Islamic identity that aren't in keeping with that.

(permission to share)

Episode 1: China (How China influences our opinions and actions)

The struggle is real LOL

We've all been there.

Eid Mubarak!

Transgender question

Someone asked this question on a forum and this post includes the response I gave. Please note I am not a scholar so this is an answer to the question- it is not a "fatwa". I wrote my response as a lay Muslim using Islamic references from the Quran as a yardstick instead of society's ever changing inconsistent and/or hypocritical values that the questioner was hoping for.


Question: I know of this one transgender man (meaning he was originally female and became male) got kicked out of the local mosque. He prayed with the men, and he looked very much like any of the other men there, but he made the mistake of telling the imam he was trans, and the imam basically said either he dressed as a woman and wore hijab and prayed with the women, or he couldn't come back. Now what's right about that? Doesn't he have as much right to pray with the men as anyone else? I mean, for all intents and purposes, he is a man. And now, what should he do since he can't go back to being female (and doesn't want to anyway) about praying at the mosque, where he was basically discriminated against? Please let me know what you think this guy should do. Thanks all!

Answer: On the one hand you say (in subsequent posts that) this individual has a mental illness called Gender Identity Disorder, on the other you call the person "he". So do you think the person is a delusional female trying to impersonate a man by injecting hormones and playing dress up? Or do you want us all to ignore the commands of Allah (swt) regarding separating men and women during prayers (and how Allah created and defined us as male and female) and contribute to the problem by actively encouraging the delusion ourselves? Those are the options.

There's so much more I can say about this. What does Allah (swt) tell us in the Quran? That Allah (swt) loves those who are repentant and those who are thankful for what He gives them. What does the Quran say that Allah (swt) hates? It tells us that the people who are wrong are those who believe in falsehood, those who are arrogant and those who are ungrateful of the favours Allah has given them. So isn't it wrong to be ungrateful for being born with the skin colour Allah gave us? Isn't it wrong to be ungrateful for growing up to be shorter than the height we want to be? Isn't it ingratitude to be blessed with a fully functioning normal nose to breathe with and yet wish to change the way Allah shaped it via plastic surgery? If Allah (swt) meant for her to be a man, He would've created her as a male. Yet she is so ungrateful for the way Allah (swt) created her, that she attempts to change the creation of Allah (swt) into the opposite identity of the one He gave her- as if to pretend that Allah made a mistake nauzobillah and she knows better. What could be more arrogant than persisting in living out her fantasy and insisting that the rest of the local Muslim community comply with what she wants rather than following Allah's (swt) commands inside a masjid?

Disdaining ungratefully Our gifts and giving themselves up to (worldly) enjoyment! But soon will they know (TMQ 29 v66)

And Allah has made for you from yourselves mates and has made for you from your mates sons and daughters and grandchildren and provided for you sustenance of the best: will they then believe in vain things and be ungrateful for Allah's favours? (TMQ 16:72)

Truly man is, to his Lord, ungrateful (TMQ 100:06)

We are told time and time again that when we live with a roof over our heads with our families and have food to eat then we should remember this as Allah's favour upon us and when we go through hardships in the dunya then we should show sabr and have the resilience to patiently persevere through it and we'd be rebuked for using our hardships as an excuse for expressing ingratitude to Allah. Our Prophets (as) Yaqub (Jacob) and Ayub (Job) had far greater reason to feel let down than any of us. Yaqub was separated from his most beloved son Yusuf (Joseph) and told he was dead which caused him to be so grief stricken that he became blind and yet he only expressed his sorrow to Allah (swt) knowing that Allah has the right to give and take and never using his grief as an excuse to turn away from the right path. Ayub (as) was blighted by a terrible illness that lasted for several years, his children died, his community rejected him and his wife left him to fend for himself, yet in spite of his difficulties, his imaan never wavered; he never used the way Allah (swt) made him as an excuse to turn away from the straight path or pretend that he was "trans-healthy" when he was sick or "trans-female" when he's male.

O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed Allah is Knowing and Acquainted (TMQ 49:13)

So it is Allah who created the male and female. Who does she think she is that she can deny such a thing? Indeed Allah is Knowing, so does she as a Muslim think Allah knows better as to which is which or that she knows better?

If white people were treated like the rest of us