Muslim Women?

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Just wondering if there are any other Aspie Muslim Women here? I converted 7 years ago.

51 views and no replies... why do i feel like i'm being watched?

No. I am not Muslim or interested in converting. I have some questions about hijab if you want to answer.

I wear modest clothing (maybe not so modest by some Muslim's standards though) and I cover my head but not necessarily all my hair. I have seen some al amira headcoverings that I really like. I would like to wear them in cooler weather. Would that be ok or just freaky for a non-Muslim to want to wear that. I also like the long skirts that some Muslim women wear and I don't know where they buy them. I never see them for sale in any store or catalogue. Do they have special stores?

I viewed your post, but hadn't replied yet. I'm not Muslim, although I have lived in the Middle East and enjoyed the culture very much. I have several sets of hijab that I absolutely love. I do normally wear extremely conservative clothing -- covered from elbow to ankle, with hair almost completely covered. I grew up that way and never really wanted to "outgrow" it. I've also read the Koran and studied Islam as part of my study of history. Overall, I view Islam as an extremely respectable and moral religion.

You say you are new to Islam. How did you happen to come to it?

M02, I think that's cool! I've actually met a young woman who wears hijab but is a christian. It's not freaky at all as long as you are prepared for the attention good and bad that you may get from people assuming you are a muslim. My favourite place to shop is http://www.shukronline.com they can be a bit pricey but the clothes are great quality and they have some great sales! If you like the more middle eastern style there are several online stores (it can be tough to find them IRL, but they do exist, it depends where you live really) there's this store (UK based) http://www.thehijabshop.com/ and this one http://www.almuhajabat.com/catalog/7 which i think is US based, i've never bought frome ither but both seem to have good reviews from others who have shopped there.

Judith, i think that is awesome too! Very intresting! Well, i've been muslim 7 years, it's a long story, but i had studied religion my whole life (i came from an athiest/agnostic family who wasn't into organized religion, but i was always interested in it, i liked the rules, rituals etc.) i joined a couple of churches before age 12 but decided christianity wasn't for me, looked into hare krishna, buddhism, wicca (and other pagan systems) and bahai and ultimately became bahai when i was 16. I was a practicing and active part of the bahai community when i met my husband, he's muslim, we became engaged and i wanted to learn about his religion (given my interest in religion, having not learned much of it before and with no intention to convert) i studied it on my own without his input (except to answer a question here and there, i mostly used books and the Quran) and became Muslim right before i turned 17. That's the short version

Um, how old was Aisha (Muhammad's last wife) when she got married? I've heard that she was six, but others say around fifteen or sixteen.

Islam is a really interesting religion with a great history. It's one of the few religions that makes sense to me - it's really simple and straightforward. Plus some of the poetry of the Koran is really pretty.

see this blog http://beautifulmuslimah.blogspot.com/

I like the Indonesian and Malayasian styles ---so feminine.

Delirium, I believe scholars differ about her age, i've heard 6 when she married and 8 when it was consummated i've also heard 10 when it was consummated and i've also heard 12 when she was married and 16 when it was consummated. So I don't know. There was a great article somewhere about her age and the reason why she was married so young, if i find it i'll give you the link. Every wife of Muhammad peace be upon him was married for a reason, either she was a widow with children, to teach the community it was ok to marry such and such (eg. his first wife was much older than him which was just not done in that culture, so that was a way for people to see that there is nothing wrong with it) the reason for Aishas young marriage was that she had a very strong memory, and she went on to be the best teacher, to this day, that the Muslim community had and has, she helped preserve the example of the Prophets way of living so that we can use it. I'll look for the article because my knowledge is limited on this subject.

M02 that's an interesting blog! Some beautiful stuff there! Thanks for the link!

Age 6 used to be the normal age for marriage in India, so it's possible they just married them young back then. I don't think her age then has anything to do with Islam now.

Thank you! People like to judge Muslims and Islam by that one fact, but really, it is a non issue now and was a non issue then!

I would rather just talk about modest fashions.

Discussing how some man married a little girl and had sex with her just makes me want to vomit. Some muslim clerics stating that they believe girls should be married before they start menstruating is just disgusting.

Doesn't sound like a big issue to me if you know history. In ancient Greece - where much of our modern society comes from - you were considered a spinster or weirdo if you were an unmarried girl at even 14 or 15, and their husbands were generally much older, in their 30s or 40s and returned from service. But then, people back then had a life expectancy of generally around 40-50 years, 60 or 70 at the very most, so things happened earlier.

You can't really judge a religion that started back then for what was the norm for various reasons, of course the people will change as time goes on.

And not from Islam.

if it's not stoning it's Aisha's age if it's not Aisha's age it's hijab if it's not hijab it's something else.... generally people don't know much about these things they like to attack us with, they don't care to know about it from a Muslim or anyone really and if someone is willing to engage them on the issue (which i no longer am) they are not open to understanding it as it is anyway.

That marriage happened a long time ago, for reasons besides sex, her age is debated, it wasn't out of the ordinary back then, it's not commonplace now and when it is it's not acceptable... so let it go!


Exactly. Thank you

I am not Muslim either, but terrible things have happened in the name of any given religion. For those who want to focus on Aisha's age, just remember something: Inquisition. So, yeah. Not much of a moral high ground there.

According to every text I have on the origins of Islam, Muhammad married Aisha on the request of her father, who thought that his daughter's liveliness would be the perfect antidote to the Prophet's despair after his first wife's death. Aisha was 7 at the time and was willing to marry. According to custom, Muhammad waited until after her first menstruation to consummate the marriage.

At this time in history, marriage between people with such an age difference and marriage at such a young age was not unusual. Some marriagess in Europe (within the nobility) occurred as young as the age of two, with the consummation withheld until an appropriate age. Mary of Scotland (later, Mary, Queen of Scots) was married to the Dauphin of France when she was only 5 and resided in the French court from that time until his death when she was about 19.

We probably shouldn't judge people from a different age and a different culture too harshly. Remember, people also died at much younger ages, as well, so marrying younger also became important. For example, the median age of the people buried in the settlement nearest to, and concurrent with, Stonehenge was 18. If they had waited until they were 20 to marry, there would have been no next generation.

I think that part of the problem is the training and organization of imans. Most other religions have central conventions for each sects that lay down the rules of preaching and doctrine. For example if a Catholic priest starts preaching something that is against the doctrine, he will be reprimanded and even could get kicked out.

I don't know how organized most mosques are but I have heard that many do not have full time imans and most are not trained so just about any man could get up and preach. Or do certain sects of Islam require that imans have a certain level of training?

There was a problem recently in Toronto with one iman marrying man to multiple wives. The first wife was the legal wife and she didn't know about the second. The iman told the couple that he married in a religious ceremony not to tell the first wife. He even said that to the newspaper. When the first wife found out she was really angry and wanted a divorce. Now the iman is being investigated.

Polygamy has only been a problem in Canada mostly with some Mormon sect in the West. Now it is becoming a problem with Muslims. You have to wonder if the wives all know about the polygamy and what their legal status will be in a divorce or custody issue. Couples living together longer than 4 months or having a child together are considered common law spouses in some Canadian provinces but usually their is only one spouse at a time. You have to wonder how different polygamy is from common law relationships involving more than two people. I think the children suffer the most. I think it would be really bad if the wives didn't know their rights and were fooled into thinking it was a legal marriage and they were the only ones.