Day 30 - Uncovering (and) [Insert Opinion Here]

I apologize for not having blogged this week, I have been sick and sleeping during all of my free time, so blogging took a back burner.

Day 30 came and went on Wednesday, and found me going to the grocery store for Halloween candy and cold medicine. I wore one of Mark's short-sleeved t-shirt over yoga pants.

I have to say, when I went to the grocery store uncovered not only was I FREEZING, I felt almost naked without my protective wrap of scarf and shirt!! Much like when I first started wearing hijab, I felt that people were looking at me in my "nakedness"!!

I also realized that taking off my hijab caused another issue that was unexpected. The hijab is almost a barrier between myself and being judged. Stay with me here. When I wear hijab, I am telling people right at the get-go that I am Muslim. There is a very slim chance that they will judge me later - either they want to be nice to me as a Muslim, or they don't. I'm putting it out there and by putting it all out there, risking less chance of rejection later on - at least on the religious choices spectrum. It is, in that way, a wall between myself and the outside world, and if people are willing to still talk to me, be friends with me, reach out to me, I know up front that they are ok with the fact that I am a Muslim. Unlike when they find out after talking to me that I am, in fact, NOT a super-Christian, or that I AM a Christian, or a Mormon, etc.

Being a Muslim did not particularly change my life all that much. Not eating pork was a little challenging, given my love of pizza, but it was do-able. Following the rules of washing and praying was an adjustment, but after getting used to it, was easy. The pre-dawn prayers were the hardest for me, and the lunch time prayers, while I thought they would be difficult, being how I was at work during that time, were easier.

I learned a number of things about the religion that I shared with you... and here are my thoughts: [End Objectivism, Begin Opinion]

1. The women I met are modern women with rights and lives outside of their homes. In theory. The fact that they CHOOSE to be submissive to their husbands, go home immediately in the middle of a girls' night because their husband refuses to change a baby diaper, reschedule meetings because their husbands' meetings trump theirs, can't follow a career path because their husband doesn't want to be bothered with picking up the slack for a working wife... those things separate them from what a non-religious modern woman might deal with. However, those are things that, regardless of how far women have come, many MANY women deal with, regardless of how "liberated" we technically are. My concern was the lack of ambition and goals outside of family that many Muslim women have. I understand the importance of family, but I also understand the importance of fulfillment. Sometimes (not all the time), in my experience, just reproducing and raising children and being married, cooking dinners, cleaning house does not a fulfilled woman make.

2. I was stunned by the number of Muslim people who don't value America in the same way I do. I was stunned that 1 out of 4 AMERICAN Muslim young men between 18 and 30 said they didn't condemn the terrorist attacks on 9/11. I was stunned to find that statistic true in both the articles I read and the people I met - who may not agree with the taking of innocent lives, but justified the reason those lives were taken. I was stunned that American Muslims are not American first. I had to examine myself and find out - was I a Christian first or an American first, particularly when I was actively involved in Christian life? I came to the conclusion that I was American first. "God AND Country" was how I was brought up, God having almost equal footing with America. America representing the ideals of how I could live my life and how far my potential could reach, and God being the boundary to guide my character. While there might have been a time once when I thought, as the Christian right does, that this country was (is) a Christian country founded on Christian ideals, I would never have supported the idea of removing all religious freedom except that of the Christian. I find that many American Muslims would do just that, making this an Islamic nation, and, like the Christian right, reducing or eliminating the rights of others to choose another religion.

When you take a group of people from countries that hate America, and have been trained all their life to hate America (for valid reasons, in many cases), then you transplant them as adults or young adults to American soil for education and opportunity, it is no surprise that they continue to see the viewpoint of countries who hate America. I'm not saying it is their fault, I'm simply saying that it was surprising to me.

3. Another surprise for me was how politically and culturally entrenched the religion is as a whole. Many of the rituals practiced are cultural hand-me-downs, continued to be practiced in a culture where they are no longer as relevant. It was difficult to separate the religion from the culture in which it was formed. I had expected, going in, that the religion was practiced in its pure form - unlike, I thought, the diluted and Americanized form of Christianity we practice here. Not so. Islam has the same difficulties with cultural influence that we have in Christian churches, the only difference is that theirs is a convergence of two opposing cultures influencing the religion.

More reflections (read: opinions) to come... :-)