Muslim Women?

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the people who are complaingin about it, maybe they didnt wear from their own choice. You have to choose to wear,. nobody has to tell you "wear it". You have to understand why you are doing it. It is an obligation for muslim women to wear it. But if your intention is only to please your family, then it is not worse it...

Well, you quoted me sister, so I guess there's no point in an edit. Of course I missed the first one--covering the whole body--and the not resembling men one. I never heard not being perfumed on the list, though it is of course true, but I also distinctly remember one shaikh listing and describing it not being "libs shuhra" or clothing so unique as to make a person stand out amongst other covered women. I think the differences in number come from 2 and 3 being combined.

It's true that some people wear it out of pressure, not out of conviction, but that's because there's also a social aspect to hijab: to protect society from elevated levels of temptation. Imagine a world without half-naked women on billboards everywhere... How would you feel different?

I was just wondering, of the Muslims here, who has AS and who is here for family members?

I am AS, and you?

I'm assuming I am. It's the closest fit I've discovered so far and I also see the traits in my father and most of my brothers and sisters. Medical treatment in Egypt I've found to be subpar and I've a bit of a phobia (of doctors) to start with, so I highly doubt there's a diagnosis in my future.

I found WP last year when I first heard of AS and a lot of the comments here have really shed light on most of my idiosyncrasies. I tend not to participate in discussion much, though, because my instinct is to offer support based on Islam and that's a hard sell here. Even the Christians get hounded.

Are you married? Do you have kids?

Yes i am married, with an algerian. I am french living in uk.
I have two children.
I was lookoing for some information about aspergers for my brother, and i found the RDOS test. I did it, and was surprise of the result. Then i looked deeper, and it was like all my life had new sense (well i already know our purpose of life, but i didnt know who i was). Noiw everything is getting clearer of the way i behave.
I thought i was possessed! LOL because , sometimes i dont like to listen to soem recitators of quran. It is painful to listen to, but some recitators, i could stay hours to listen to.. (so i am not possessed! just an aspie! : ) )
I am trying to find some sisters who are aspies. because we may need some supports and because we are muslims, we have some things to do to make life easier. Like controling the anger, anxiety with duas...

I am a pagan with a christan family as well, but they don't care what I wear because they know I have a uniqe style anyway. I have a modest dress anyway, long skirts, shawls ect, and I sometime cover my hair and head (not face) with a head scarf, they don't pay it any mind at all.

Chibi_Neko and FieryGatoh: I find it so bizarre that the issue of hijab is so polarizing, though women throughout the ages have respected themselves enough to dress modestly. Since when was a woman putting every intimate detail of her sexual attractiveness on display a sign of progress?

ghouna: It's nice to meet other Muslims with similar issues. I initially came her with issues, especially about impulse control (anger, frustration, speaking my mind, etc.), issues of depression and anxiety and about how to be a good mother despite my flaws. As much as the people here have good things to say, still I felt there was something missing, so I went away for a while to try to translate things back into the language of my life: the Qur'an and Sunnah.

I hope I'm getting somewhere...

I was married to an Egyptian, but we're now divorced--for good. He was a good man and all, but we both had tragic flaws. We have three kids, a boy and two girls.

MashaAllah UmmAR.
A friend of mine as a yahoo group for muslim parents of aspie kids. I am on it, but it is mainly for kids, but maybe you could come on it?
It is important to know how to deal with some issues, and as you said, we need to do it in according of the sunnah and quran. Sometimes we are very misunterstood within the muslim community. If i say that i am happy on my own, i speak what i think (and sometimes it is not easy to speak what i think, because i cannot find word, drawing would be easier. but i draw very badly!!¬! )

#Anyway, sometimes muslims sisters they dont like me, i am weird. and they dont understand why i am so happy to be far away from everybody.

What did you find in the coran and sunnah for us?
I only know the duas against anger and anxiety.
there is also hadiths telling us that we should think before speaking, for bad or good things to say...

It's really inspiring to see so many women coming out in favor of modest dress. It's particularly surprising here on WP- most discussions of religion here feature angry tirades from atheists. (Why does it bother them so much if we believe, as long as we respect their right not to?)
I am a practicing Jewish woman- I like that word, Orthodox means ''correct faith''. I don't presume that I or anyone else has a monopoly on G-d. I may never get it perfect, but I keep practicing! I wear long skirts, sleeves to the elbow and head wraps. I get mistaken for a Muslimah a lot until people see my Star of David.
A really great book I've read recently is ''Living Islam Out Loud''.It has essays, biographies and poems by women who were raised Muslim in the United States. They relate their experiences and attitudes toward hijab, marriage and Muslim family life, and community. They have different ways of observing or not observing Sharia, but the impression I got from the book is that they are all proud to be Muslim.

LOL , i do sometimes confused jewish women for muslim. Some wear black head scarf. but not the same way as muslim. it is velvet fabric or something like that.
Many times my husband was mistaken for a jewish.
I have a question (sorry if i am wrong to ask) what does the star of david means?
A good book to read is "from my sisters lips" form naima bint robert. it is from a convert.
I will try to find the book you told me about.

You are so right when you said that:

Many times on other website i had to ask the same question!
You know, if you say "i am going party all night, dress very badly..." people think "she is having fun"
But if you say "i will pray all night, dress modestly, think about God more..." people think "ooh, she is sad, she is not happy, she is oppressed"
And that is for all the religion.
I am a muslim woman, but i have fun!

I have a very difficult past, and i didnt respect myself. At the end, i start to become a boy (well short hair, dress with boys clothes) because i couldnt accept the fact i was a woman. Not that i wanted to be male, just because i wanted to go unnoticed. Then i became a muslim, and i start to dress modestly then wear hijab. and i became a woman again, and i got more respect from people and from myself.

As you said, we cannot be perfect in our religion, it is very hard! we are not prophets or wives of prophets... But we can practice the best as we can.

It's true about the respect. One of the reasons I wear a scarf instead of a wig like many religious Jewish women do, is that I feel the respect coming from other people. Before I was married (when Jewish women start to cover their hair) I would walk down the street and get remarks from guys- you know what kind of remarks. Even dressed modestly- I guess it wasn't enough of a distinction. As soon as I started wearing a scarf, that stopped happening. Maybe some people didn't even know what religion I was- but they could tell, here is a religious woman who respects herself, so she deserves respect.
I don't know much about the star of David- something about one triangle pointing to Heaven, the other pointing down, from Heaven to us. I think. But it is a powerful spiritual symbol in other cultures as well. Some places in Africa have it (maybe from the Jews in Ethiopia?) and the Rastafarians from Jamaica- their religion is sort of centered around Ethiopia.
Yes, it's good to find a topic on WP where religion can be discussed in a peaceful manner! Most of the religion topics sort of disintegrate into a flamethrowing match between militant atheists and fundamentalist Christians. Hey, some of us have other beliefs!

ghouna: The yahoo group sounds interesting. I don't know if any of my kids are AS yet. I'm always on the lookout for anything I can help them with, though, AS or not.

For me, the whole AS label is for helping me to understand myself and my particular challenges and/or limitations. The Qur'an and Sunnah, however, are about life. Learning about AS was enlightening at first, but then it started to drag me down a little and I was afraid I would just use it to make excuses to myself and to others. So, I started to think about it more in terms of my iman. Everyone has challenges/limitations, but we should all have the same goal - worshiping Allah in the best way we can, which can be extremely different from person to person.

Before I became Muslim, I had learned to belittle any and all social obligations because I had nothing to prove to me that such things were important. I could always argue and justify my way out of anything I didn't want to do. As a Muslim with AS, though, one of my greatest fears is that I will never have husn ul-khuluq (refined manners). Although I believe that deep inside I am a good person, I struggle to overcome my nafs and I try to be optimistic and forgiving with others, still when I try to act on what I feel in my heart, it often comes out all wrong. I get misunderstood and I retreat into myself instead of trying to figure out what went wrong and fix it. Maybe that's been due to a lack of support. I don't know. Or maybe a lack of courage and clarity. Or maybe both.

Your husband must be one understanding fellow if your issues are anything like mine. How do you two deal? I made a mess of my marriage and I need to understand myself better if I ever want to get married again.

legendoftheselkie: We are indeed relics of a lost civilization. Yet with conviction, prayer and hope, we carry on.

I don't see anything wrong with the term "orthodoxy". Maintaining what you hold to be correct belief when others want to reform the principle out of you is a good thing, not a pompous claim. Of course, I was raised an Orthodox Christian, so maybe I have some lingering attachment to the word. In Islam, I follow what I see to be the correct beliefs, I try to learn them, preach them and defend them from misconception. This in no way means that I claim to be perfect. Part of Allah's plan for us is that we seek the Truth, act to the best of our ability, admit our failures and shortcomings and seek His forgiveness. This is how we were created and this is how we can become better than the angels, by Allah's Leave.

Just out of curiosity, why do some Jews avoid saying the name of God? I know that the Ten Commandments contains not taking His Name in vain, but I understood that to refer to taking oaths in vain. I'd be interested in hearing the rationale.

I just thought of a sitcom that you might like ummAR and other muslim women,
it's called Little Mosque on the Prairie and it is a Canadian made show, it airs on CBC.
Here is the site

It's one of my favoret shows and features a fictional town with a high muslim population that go through the same issues that other Canadians do.

season 2 ended with a cliff hanger, so I can't wait for season 3 to start! The first season is on DVD.

My fave character is Babar.... he is a super-conservative muslim but he is so funny doing so, he has rant videos on the site I posted.

Not taking G-d's name in vain (in Hebrew) can be extended to mean not throwing it around lightly in everyday conversation, outside of prayer and study. Not writing every letter out in any language is because it might be erased or discarded, or taken to an unclean place, which would be disrespectful.

Ramadan mubarak!! !!

I think some countries are trying to establish some kind of formal training or recognition for imams (although I don't believe it's required islamically). I agree there's a problem with some imams. Some of them don't seem to be very aware of Islamic shariah, for example, and will base their teachings on cultural traditions and superstitions from their native country and you get a lot of them saying: This is islamic, when in fact it's a cultural tradition.

This is where you get the discrepancies between arranged/acceptable and arranged/forced marriages. Some people who come from communities where there aren't necessarily high levels of literacy and education will follow cultural traditions like 'forcing' their children to marry. This kind of practice is unislamic, because people shouldn't be forced into marriage.

But you still get families that try to force their children to marry 'because of Islam', which is really annoying. And then you get non-muslims shying away from condemning such unislamic practices, because they're afraid of being politically incorrect or 'racist'.

Polygamy is permitted in Islam. Again, in certain circumstances. At the time of the Prophet Mohammed, lots of men lost their lives in wars and so polygamy was permitted so that the widows of the slain soldiers would be a able to find a husband to provide for her and her family.

Also, I forget the exact wording, but the Prophet Mohammed said something along the lines of marry more than one wife if you can treat them all equally. One interpretation of that is that polygamy is allowed. An alternative intepretation is that it's impossible to treat them equally, so it shouldn't be allowed.

In any event, what happened in Canada was wrong and unislamic. If the husband wants to take a second wife (or third or fourth) he has to tell the first wife and to obtain her permission.

Again, that's probably an example of some uneducated, possibly illiterate imam who transports cultural practices from his village in his home country, goes to Canada and then starts saying that cultural traditions are 'islamic', they're nothing of the kind, they're not religious practices, they're cultural practices.

If a muslim man wanted to take a second wife, he would have to inform and obtain his first wife's permission (or the permission of second and/or third wives) and they would have to consent in order for him to 'legally' marry a further wife under Islam.