ADEENUL �AQL � RELIGION IS INTELLECT .

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

 Merigen wrote:

Hi Hasan, 

I do agree with you on some of these issues.  In some cases, way to much liberty is taken in dress.  I'm thinking though that the dress is not really the issue but the person themselves.  If they were covered up they'd find other ways to attract attention. 

Living in the West as you do you are aware that certain ways of modified dress are very acceptable such as shorts in the hot summer months.  I don't think people pay much attention one way or another.  Here if we see a woman totally covered up from head to toe, the first thing that comes to mind is not that she is being modest but what is she hiding?  In that case we feel she is drawing attention to herself rather than not.

I agree there is alot of sexual freedom.  I feel that is something that will have to work itself out as people mature and grow.  I don't think it is as rampant as it once was.  I have many gay friends.  I believe it is determined at birth and not really of the person's choosing.  Two of my friends have been together for twenty years and are very committed to each other.  They work hard, pay taxes and contribute to their community.

The separation of sexes in the West is pretty impractical as I said in the other post.  Our lives intersect at all levels.  I really can't imagine just having female friends and this is the norm for us.  All people in my family and group of friends have always had friends - and friends is just what is was - of the opposite sex starting from grade school. 

I know there is a difference of opinion on these matters.  Thank you for writing to me.

Merigen 

Merigen,
I agree with you on some things while other I would like to make a point. I don't think that anybody is trying to change how we in the West dress or behave. That is a broader debate and I don't have interest to discuss that, at this time.
I am talking about it from an Islamic perspective. Unlike the manmade standards, which are based on trial and error, and are ever changing, in an organized religion like Islam, they are devinely guided. We believe that our maker knows All, and when He gave us some rules we cannot modify them, or change them due to time, race or place. Its like a doctor's prescription given to patient, only doctor can modify it, because he knows what he prescribed and for what. 
Those of us who take the oath of following that belief, fulfill that oath through pratice of what it teaches.
I see many people who pay taxes and are good citizen in the eyes of other, yet have multiple sex partners or partners without marriage, have children without marriage. It seems just fine and normal, because we have devloped and evolved into such. Even here is the West the same behavior was considered wrong and bad not too long ago. So its not that the wrong behavior now is Ok, but because we have developed it into a perfactly normal looking one. While in reality its the same, wrong, but because more are doing it so everyone is accepting of it because they themself probably has accepted it and are living it as well, so once a wrong, no longer so.

You talked about covered-up or dressed up woman getting more attention than one in the skirt.
You are right in that, but we have to see here what kind of attention we are talking about.  A woman walking by with cloths that expose her form and beauty and show her body and skin catches a strange man's attention in majority of cases for what? I don't think for her intellegent mind or her language or what she does for a living rather for one: her body and beyond! Why a woman's body has this magnetic affect on men, I don't think we need to discuss that here as that's a whole new chapter.  Now on the other hand, as you talked about, a woman passing by, covered head to toe grabes attention too and more so today. Is it the same attention? No, and that is the point. That woman is not giving the man the oppertunity to see her form, shape of her beautiful body and skin, covered, protected from those looks and thoughts. Beacuse she believes that the body given to her from her maker is given in a turst, and she has to care for it, nurture it, protect it as the maker commanded. She gets attention because we have spread rumors about those who dress like her as oppresed or bad people. She may not please those around her, but  she endures it for the pleasure of her Maker, Who's pleasure is more important to her, even if it causes her bad looks looks and comments. To her that is less price to pay, then to displease her maker and be rejected eternally.
I hope I don't sound preachy here, as I only wanted to make clear my understanding on the issue.
Hasan